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LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
PRINCETON, N. J. 


PRESENTED BY 


Mrs. Ella G ce 


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SSETETATI SEY 
THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 
AND THE EVANGELIST 


een estes 


OLD TESTAMENT 
VOLUME 3. 





LEVITICUS, NUMBERS, 
DEUTERONOMY 


BY 


W. B. RILEY, D.D. 


Pastor First Baptist Church, 
Minneapolis, Minn, 
Author of “The Evolution of the Kingdom”, 


“Inspiration or Evolution”, “Christ, the 
Incomparable”, etc. 


Published by the 


UNION GOSPEL PRESS 
CLEVELAND, OHIO 








Copyricut, 1926 
BY se 
UnIon GOSPEL PRESS 


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TABLE OF CONTENTS 
LEVITICUS 


CHAP. PAGE 


EPO ICEL OL Geel rieee et eae eee eee 5 


I.The Book of Leviticus (A Bird’s-Eye 


ICME) Reha Ntelse lacs wen nt oe et neers. 7 
II. The Meaning of the Whole Burnt Offering, 
IGOMIEICUSH Liner! Airey iiras saat an et ace 29 
III. The Great Day of Atonement, 
ELAN TCT Og te hance Pub rn ie ta re kat eee a 47 
IV. The Sabbatic Year and the Year of Jubilee, 
Ha DLET GO alan omenow, Ucn Wipy has reir (ee 69 
NUMBERS 
RELL C HOt iewset eat ae ene erty \eher  BK 95 


I. Marching and Murmuring, 
OP LCLS el LOW are. Cai hey Meh eet 97 


II. Kadesh to Canaan, 
PSUR DLECESsAUS3O) re eles ees eho Lie 


IIT. Our Standard Is Our Strength, 
BUA CLM OM rae i Pane Cte mitre site 131 


IV. Courage Versus Cowardice, 
RETTAD LOMMeL ally Serta rere er enw rn by ara 149 


CONTENTS 


V. America’s Part in the Late War, 
Chapter: 32:08/45 2 ican ree een seen 


DEUTERONOMY 


Introduchony. 25; sc auiens cee 2 eee eee 
I. The Book of Deuteronomy, 
Chapters 1-34 as aa Serva cee sleeps eee 


II. The Feast of Tabernacles, 
Chapter 16%13-17.. a) a se so ee ee 


LEVITICUS 


INTRODUCTION 

In this volume we undertake both a delicate and 
difficult task, namely, the bringing of the three 
Books of Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy 
within the brief compass of one volume. Our de- 
fense is in the fact that their very natures demand 
either that brief, bold outline which will give the 
reader just a general conception, with an illustra- 
tion or two of how to specialize in study; or else 
that detailed treatment that would require many 
volumes for their full study. We have chosen to 
adopt the former, believing that we can, in a few 
chapters, touch upon each of these Books in turn, 
and incite the reader to become a Spirit-guided stu- 
dent of these Books rather than a mere reader of 
what an author had to say concerning them. 

Leviticus presents the conditions under which 
continued fellowship with God becomes possible. 
That is the meaning of type and symbol and cere- 
mony. The stream of blood that runs through 
Leviticus is the blood of reconciliation; “without 
the shedding of which there is no remission.” 

The Book that records all of this makes an ex- 
plicit claim to Divine origin, ““The Lord called un- 
to Moses and spake unto him”. It is an oft-re- 
peated claim. One writer says that it is repeated 
no less than fifty-six times in twenty-seven chap- 
ters, or a little more than twice for each chapter. 
It is the hardihood of the foolish, therefore, to 
criticise this claim, especially in view of the fact 
that all the vicissitudes and changes of more than 

5 


6 INTRODUCTION 


thirty centuries (nearly forty) have not in any way 
detracted from the meaning of this marvelous Old 
Testament volume. Forgeries don’t live after forty 
centuries, and the mere effusions of an uninspired 
mind seldom survive a single decade. 

Let us read then, this volume, knowing that as in 
EXODUS we got acquainted with God, the eternal 
God, the everlasting Father, in LEVITICUS we 
shall see the way opened into His holy presence, and 
by type and symbol understand that Christ is the 
Way. Truly has it been said, “The keynote of the 
Book of Leviticus is ‘Holiness unto God’.” 


CRAP RE Re i 


THE BOOK OF LEVITICUS 


A BIRD’S-EYE VIEW 





THE BOOK OF LEVITICUS 
A BIRD’S-EYE VIEW 


Leviticus, Chapters 1-27 


ie may seem to our readers that we have given 

scant attention to the Book of Leviticus when 
we cover it in three chapters, but we are confident 
that the reading of the first chapter will remove a 
portion of that objection. We herewith republish 
the contents of our volume, “Old Testament Types”, 
in which appeared a treatment of the following sub- 
jects: 

“The Pillar of Cloud and Fire”, a study of Exodus 
13:20,21 and related Scriptures; “The Symbol of 
‘The Smitten Rock’ ”, a study of Exodus 17:5, 6 and 
related Scriptures; “The Lessons in the Ark of the 
Covenant”, a study of Exodus 25:21 and related 
Scriptures; “The Meaning of the “Whole Burnt’ 
Offering’’, a study of Leviticus 1: and related Scrip- 
tures; “The Typology in the Great Day of Atone- 
ment”, a study of Leviticus 16: and related Scrip- 
tures; “The Sabbatic Year and the Year of Jubilee”, 
a study of Leviticus 25: and related Scriptures ; and 
“Thanksgiving”? or The Feast of Tabernacles”, a 
study of Deuteronomy 16:13-17 and related Scrip- 
tures. 


In passing from the Book of Exodus to the study 
of Leviticus, there is no break. In fact, the unity 
and continuity of the Bible has profoundly affected 
its best students. Book follows Book in unbroken 
thought. In the Book of Genesis, a veritable eter- 
nity is involved. Who can measure or even imagine 

9 


10 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


the stretch of time covered by the words, “In the 
beginning’? 


In the Book of Exodus, we cover a period of 216 
years from the time when Israel went down into 
Egypt until the day when, having quit the land, she 
assembled about Sinai; but in the Book of Leviticus 
only twenty-eight solar days are required for its 
completion. 


Moses and Mark have a literary feature in com- 
mon; they are painters of lightning speed; a few 
strokes from their pens and the picture is com- 
plete. Some writers have marveled at the daring of 
Moses in attempting to tell the story of creation in 
a single chapter—Genesis 1; but marvel turns to 
amazement when one remembers that Moses re- 
quired no such an amount of space for that colossal 
task. In fact he put it all into a single line, “In the 
beginning God created the heavens and the earth”. 
That is creation’s story in a nutshell. And yet that 
is the most complete story of creation found in all 
literature—as Parker said, “The simplest, the sub- 
limest, and the most satisfactory.” 


All the remaining part of Genesis 1: is an elabora- 
tion, and has to do with time, order, and objective. 
In all of this it has an incomparable character and 
is a prophecy of character of all that is to come after 
in the Book called the Bible. 


But in the study of this twenty-eight day volume, 
let me call attention to the plenary inspiration of 
the Book, the plan and purpose of the same, and its 
possible application to present-day affairs. 


AND THE EVANGELIST 11 


THE PLENARY INSPIRATION OF 
LEVITICUS 


This Book has shared with its sixty-five sister 
volumes the vociferous attacks of modern criticism ; 
but, like all the others, it stands fast, unmoved, and 
in the judgment of believers, immovable. 

There are at least three grounds on which faith 
in its inspiration finds a somewhat firm footing, viz.: 
That inspiration is claimed by the Book itself for 
its every part; its inspiration was, for twenty-five 
full centuries, conceded by faithful scholars; and, 
most important to this controversy is the fact that 
its inspiration was plainly affirmed by Christ Him- 
self. 

Inspiration was claimed by the Book itself for its 
every part. The opening sentence of Leviticus 
reads, “The Lord called unto Moses and spake unto 
him out of the congregation of the tabernacle saying”, 
etc. Its closing sentence reads, “These are the com- 
mands which the Lord commanded Moses for the Chil- 
dren of Israel in Mt. Sinai’, and between this open- 
ing statement and this final assertion there are filty- 
four assertions of Divine authority for the twenty- 
seven chapters involved. 

It is a custom of critics to institute comparisons 
between the claims of their so-called god-men and 
Christ, and their so-called sacred books and our Bi- 
ble; but they will search in vain for any book that 
affirms its heavenly origin after the manner of the 
Bible, even in those instances where there is a palpable 
attempt to parallel Biblical claims in order to put 
over an evident imposture. Certain supposed critics of 
recent times have sought to explain the Bible upon 
the basis that the Hebrew race, in the evolution of 


12 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


man, became the most spiritually thoughtful, and the 
most ethically correct, and in consequence of that 
fact, gave to the world a volume of history, poetry, 
philosophy and religion of superior sort. But, as the 
more believing father of a famous skeptical son said, 
“Let the Old Testament come to be regarded as 
only a collection of annals, songs, prophecies, and 
proverbs, having indeed far greater value than those 
of surrounding nations, but with no special and 
peculiar endorsement of God, then we must take this 
currency at a fearful discount. Its characters, ‘real 
or imaginary’, will still serve the intellectual world 
‘to point a moral and adorn a tale’. The words of 
Scripture can still be gracefully quoted to round out 
a period. There can be a happy classical allusion. 
The old-time Hebrews can serve us in literary work 
as do the old-time heroes of the Grecian story. They 
can be used to illustrate any exalted idea we have 
ourselves originated. We can quote from the Old 
Testament exactly as from the Koran, when it is an 
endorsement of our own belief. It will be among 
the sheaves that do obeisance to the one of our own 
binding. But authority is gone from any declaration 
it may contain.” 

Such a view is not at all in accord with the claims 
of Leviticus; it has no semblance to its repeated 
statement that Moses is passing to the people what 
God gave to him. 

This heavenly origin of Leviticus was, for twenty 
full centuries, conceded by scholars. In Ezra’s day 
the place of Leviticus in the Sacred Canon was 
established, and so far as scholarship has been able 
to show, its text then was exact with its present 
text. It is hardly likely that the Jews of Ezra’s time, 


AND THE EVANGELIST 13 


holding as tenaciously as they did, not only to the 
authority of their Scriptures, but to the necessity of 
keeping them utterly intact, would have permitted 
the palming off upon them of such a volume and ac- 
cepted it as sacredly Divine, without controversy. 
When it is remembered that in addition to the feasts 
found in this Book, it has moral codes that clash 
with the law of the flesh, and physical demands that 
mean pain, toil, suffering, sacrifice, what people 
would permit a scribe to impose burdens so heavy 
to be borne, without proof of their Divine origin 
and inspired revelation? It may be, in fact it is a 
truth, that falsehood can survive for a time, and im- 
positions upon credulity find acceptance; but it is 
very difficult to imagine that the modern scholar 
knows so much more than the competent men whose 
lives were lived either at the very time Leviticus 
was produced, or in such contiguity to that far-off 
century that they had first hand knowledge. As for 
me, the testimony of Moses in this matter is valu- 
able beyond that of Wellhausen; and the convic- 
tions of Ezra are far more likely true than those of 
a Kuenen. Thirty centuries or more have swept over 
this twenty-eight day volume, and it stands as 
steadily as a Gibralter. Who fears that the waves of 
a twentieth century unbelief, in breaking over it, 
will do other than dash themselves to pieces and at 
last sullenly retreat from its granite base, its God- 
given claim? 

But, more important yet is the circumstance that 
Christ Himself declared for its Divine origin and 
authority. He called it “the Law of Moses” (Luke 
24:44). Quoting from it, He said, “Heaven and earth 
shall pass away, but not one jot or tittle shall pass from 


14 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


the words of this Book till all be fulfilled”. When He 
healed the leper (Matt. 8:4) He sent him to the 
priest on the ground that Moses had commanded 
(Lev. 14:3-10). When justifying His disciples for 
plucking ears of corn on the Sabbath day, He ap- 
pealed to the law of Leviticus 29:9. Regarding the 
law of circumcision, He affirmed its authority. See 
Leviticus 12:3. When condemning children for 
neglect and ill-treatment of parents, He appealed 
again to the priest code of Leviticus 29. 

A modern writer with a slight tendency to liber- 
alism, insisting that no special theory of inspiration 
be adopted, but that with open mind every man 
study all theories, expecting to find in each one 
something overlooked in another, and so in the end 
come at least nearer to the truth, says: “He need 
not be wholly right, who, by some single view of a 
theme, has opened some new light of thinking. The 
best views are approximate; and he would be found 
wanting in knowledge of inspiration who thinks that 
the last word has been spoken.” But to the true be- 
liever the question of “the last word” on inspiration 
is not even debatable. It has been spoken, not by 
man, nor yet by the children of men, but by God, 
manifested in human form. The declarations of 
Christ leave no place for debate. What He affirms 
stands fast, or else the whole fabric of Christianity 
falls; and concerning Leviticus, He has plainly 
spoken, putting it into the Sacred Canon, declaring 
it the sacred Word of the Lord. Unlettered men, 
therefore, the woman acquainted with no dead 
languages—these have intelligent reason for ac- 
cepting the inspiration of Leviticus, and who shall 
answer their arguments? The Book itself claims to 


AND THE EVANGELIST 15 


be divinely inspired. For twenty-four centuries the 
greater scholars never debated it, and the affirma- 
tive Word of Christ on the subject is conclusive. 

We turn, then, from the plenary inspiration of 
Leviticus to 


THE PLAN AND PURPOSE OF LEVITICUS 


If there is a plan and purpose in the Bible itself, 
the same will be discovered in each of the sixty- 
six Books. To this law Leviticus is no exception. 

The plan is simply profound. This sounds para- 
doxical, but further study reveals sufficient proof 
of it. Take the opening chapter as an illustration. 
We have there the burnt offering. The child or the 
unlettered man, reading it, would wonder at its 
meanings; in fact, would probably feel that such 
statements were past comprehension, if not absurd; 
but when the intelligent student comes to this same 
Scripture, he finds it simply profound. In the burnt 
offering, he discovers a type of Christ offering Him- 
self, without spot, to God. He is indeed the “Lamb 
without blemish”; His was indeed a “voluntary of- 
fering”, made “in the presence of the congregation”. 
That it was substitutionary, He, Himself, asserted, 
even as all prophets proclaimed; and that He stood 
in the sinner’s stead, Scripture clearly affirms. If the 
offering is a bullock, then the patient endurance of 
our Lord is typified. If it is a sheep or a lamb, then 
His meek, unresisting self-surrender is suggested. 
If it is a goat, then we see Him, who was righteous, 
made a sinner, and condemned under the Law. Te 
it is a turtle dove or pigeon, we are reminded of His 
crowning innocency. 

When once we have passed the offering, itself, we 


16 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


meet the priest who is to present it. He must be 
the High Priest. Such was Christ! He must lay all 
upon the altar; Christ withheld nothing. He must 
wash the inwards and his legs with water; in the 
inmost soul was found no spot or stain. When he 
burnt this sacrifice, it became in the fire a sweet 
savor to the Lord; such was the suffering Son of 
God. 

Doubtless many of these deeper meanings were 
missed by the Jews themselves, because their minds, 
like the minds of the Gentiles, were dull and clouded 
to the truth. The practice of sin makes the percep- 
tions of truth difficult. The very types of the cruci- 
fied Christ were too often to the ancient Jews, as 
to the modern ones, a stumbling block, and to the 
ancient Greeks, as to the present-day Gentiles, fool- 
ishness, but unto them which are called, both Jews 
and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wis- 
dom of God! The more carefully one studies these 
symbols under the direction of the Holy Spirit, the 
more surely does he realize that what seems to be 
the foolishness of God contains a wisdom above any 
thought of man, past or present! 

But I turn about to make a kindred remark. 

The purpose of Leviticus is profoundly simple. 
From the first word to the last, it moves to one 
great objective, “holiness”. The demand for holi- 
ness is as insistent a repetition as is the declaration 
of Divine inspiration. The object of each offering 
was to put away sin and bring man into relation- 
ship with God. The object of every social code was 
to improve man’s character as he stood in the Di- 
vine Presence. The end of every law was to restrain 
from iniquity, and inspire to righteousness. Sanita- 


AND THE EVANGELIST als 


tion and health are relatives of holiness. The very 
ritual of religion may become a mould for morality. 
When the body is right, the soul is profited. Joseph 
Parker believed that the practice of physical clean- 
ness will be followed by a philosophy, and the 
custom of moral cleanness will be attended by a 
theology. To illustrate, he says, “Accustom a man 
to look out for bullocks and rams and lambs with- 
out blemish, and he will find he cannot stop at that 
point; he has begun an education which can only 
culminate in the prayer, “Create in me a clean 
heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me,’ 
though no word of that holy thought was given in 
the original instructions.” 

How this Old Testament teaching accords with 
New Testament truth! “Follow peace with all men, 
and holiness, without which no man shall see the 
Lord” (Heb. 12:14). “As obedient children, not fash- 
ioning yourselves according to the former lusts, in 
your ignorance: But as He which hath called you 
is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation ; 
Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy” 
(I Peter 1:14,15. A quotation from Lev. 11:44). 

In both plan and purpose, the prophetic element 
was prominent. The offerings were prophetic; the 
feasts were prophetic; the very social codes antic- 
ipated the kingdom to come. The burnt offering 
(chap. 1) prophesied the day when He, Himself, 
should be upon the altar. The meat offering (chap. 
2) set forth the plan and perfection of His unchang- 
ing character. The peace offering (chap. 3) prophe- 
sied the peace to which we have come by His death. 
The sin offering (chap. 4) anticipated the day when 
He should stand in our stead and bear our sins in 


18 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


His own body on the tree. The trespass offering 
(chaps. 5-7) looked to His removal of the injurious 
fruits of our unfaithfulness. The consecration of 
the priests (chaps. 8-10) voiced His full surrender. 
“To, I come to do Thy will”. Their ministry pre- 
figured the fruits of His marvelous life. The law of 
the leper’s cleansing (chaps. 13-15) revealed the way 
the Lord could put away the leprosy of sin. The 
great day of Atonement (chap. 16) held at its heart 
practically every relationship that Christ sustains to 
the sinner from the time when He becomes his sub- 
stitute, until that other day when He reveals Him- 
self in power and glory. The feast of Sabbaths 
(chap. 23), the appointment of the Sabbatic year and 
the creation of the year of Jubilee (chap. 25)—to 
what great events they look, every one! In these 
prophetic features of Old Testament literature and 
example, we see the preliminary sketches of God’s 
whole plan of salvation, the dim outline of the King- 
dom, and all its laws. 

Paul, writing to the Colossians, and again to the 
Hebrews, speaks of these types and feasts as “a 
shadow of things to come”. In the Levitical priest- 
hood he saw a type of Christ in His lowly service; 
in the Aaronic priesthood he saw a type of our great 
High Priest who, by the shedding of His own 
Blood, put away sin; and in the holy times and 
Sabbatic seasons, symbols of Heaven itself in its 
purity and permanence. 

There are men who, in the spirit of egotism, scorn 
symbols and types, saying, “Give us abstract truth” ; 
disparage persons and exalt principles; refuse to 
bend the knee before an individual good, but go into 
ecstacies over abstract goodness. They would dis- 


AND THE EVANGELIST 19 


pense with Revelation and introduce Philosophy. 
They would abandon the historic Christ and wor- 
ship the Christ of Christianity. They would deny 
the personality of God and exalt Principle to the 
throne of the universe. 

All of this they adduce as evidence of their intel- 
lectual maturity. Alas, what strange methods men 
adopt to prove themselves “grown-ups”. The fifteen- 
year-old boy must smoke a cigarette. To him that 
is the needful proof that he is no longer a child, but 
a man. He must slip in an occasional oath. In his 
judgment that shows to the world he has left the 
infantile forever and is now full grown. These ac- 
complishments, attended by the wearing of long 
pants, complete the “toga virilis”, the last needful 
outward sign of manhood. The concepts in the 
former case are as immature as the conduct in the 
latter. What man is so fully grown up and so spir- 
itually strong that he can fling away all intellectual and 
spiritual sign-boards; so mature that he no longer 
needs aid through the eyes; so progressive that he 
can put away at once the types of Leviticus and the 
Person of the Son of God, the visible figure that 
walked in Galilee and talked on the way to Emmaus, 
that ascended from the mountain top, and stands 
now in the Holy of Holies as our personal High 
Priest and Advocate! 

There may be men who can worship an abstract 
Christ, a Christian principle so-called, but to me, 
none other than the Man of Nazareth, none other 
than the One who rose from Joseph’s tomb, none 
other than the One who said, “I go to prepare a 
place for you”, none other than the Son of God, but 
also the Son of the Virgin Mary; and I doubt if any 


20 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


true worship is ever performed when mere abstrac- 
' tions control, and I doubt if any man has ever in- 
telligently bowed the knee to an ideal or thought- 
fully voiced prayers to a principle. 


The one great motive in the infinite Mind of God 
was to meet man’s finite capacity by a visible, actual 
manifestation of Himself in the flesh; and until God 
did that, all codes and laws, assemblies and asser- 
tions failed to save man from making gods of wood 
and stone, and star and moon and sun. The finite 
mind cannot reach the infinite by a single leap. In 
its outreach, it must be met half-way, and that is 
why God manifested Himself in the Man of Naza- 
reth. Do not throw away Leviticus too soon then. 
Even the advanced mind can receive instruction 
through touch and sight and hearing. 

But to conclude. 


WHAT IS THE PRESENT APPLICATION 
OF LEVITICUS? 


There are men who imagine that the Old Testa- 
ment has no message for moderns, and there are 
even Bible teachers who will tell you that all this 
legislation and typology and codification belonged 
wholly to the Jews and has no reference, even re- 
mote, to either the Gentiles or our own times. On 
the contrary, “all Scripture is given by inspiration 
of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for 
correction, for instruction in righteousness ; that the 
man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished un- 
to all good works” (JI Tim. 3:16, 17). Mark you, “All 
Scripture”. Experience and observation alike attest 
the truth of that inspired sentence. 


The physiological laws of Leviticus are proven 


AND THE EVANGELIST 21 


to be of permanent value. The Jew, who religious- 
ly regards them, finds that many years are added to 
his life as a result. The Gentile, man or woman, 
who will obey the laws of Leviticus, will bring from 
that obedience physical blessing. 

It is very doubtful if, in the literature of the 
centuries, any single treatise on sanitation and 
health is comparable to Leviticus. The Jew’s physical 
life is a proof of that. No matter where you find 
him nor how often unsanitary conditions are about 
him, how poor the section of the city, how filthy the 
streets, how polluted the air, he is a comparatively 
healthy and strangely virile individual. For full 
forty centuries this one family, following what they 
accepted from Moses as the Law of the Lord, has 
not only survived, but in spite of all untoward cir- 
cumstances, has marked continued progress. A 
writer says, “Empires have perished away as a 
shadow, leaving behind them only their names ; they 
have perished and their places know them no more, 
but the Jews are still there, standing apart from all 
other races, as in the days of Jesus Christ, one 
distinct and unique family in the midst of the con- 
fusion of all others; rich, though a thousand times 
despoiled; increasing in numbers and more united 
than ever, though scattered by a tempest of eighteen 
centuries to the extremities of the globe.” 

They are simply remarkable in their resistance 
of disease, in their endurance of hardship, in their 
victory over famine—to sum it all up, in physical 
virility. Who will say it is not worthwhile to re- 
gard the Levitical laws, and that they have no 
meaning for moderns? If the “body is the temple 
of the Holy Ghost”, it is the sacred obligation of 


22 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


every mortal man to discover, if possible, and prac- 
tice assiduously the great outstanding laws of 
health. More and more, modern physicians are, by 
the study of twentieth century science, discovering 
laws and principles clearly enunciated and elaborated 
in the Book of Leviticus. “They are life unto those 
that find them, and health to all their flesh”. 

The social and political codes of Leviticus involve 
perfection. Had the social codes of Leviticus been 
closely followed by all the generations since the 
day when they were delivered at Moses’ lips, evil 
rulers, sinful nations and turbulent governments 
could not have been. ‘The great vices that have 
rotted the nations themselves would have been sure- 
ly and securely escaped. Pestilence, poverty, slav- 
ery, oppressive riches, social injustice, murder, rape, 
lust, covetousness, theft, usury—in fact, every fea- 
ture of social life is touched upon and social justice 
is meted out to wilful sinners and flagrant crimi- 
nals. 

That judgment often expresses itself in the 
“death” of such offenders; “death” for those who 
offer children to Molech (20:3); “death” for adul- 
tery in multiplied forms (chap. 20:4-16); “death” 
for murder (24:17). We have come to a time when 
men, by legislation have dispensed with the severer 
judgments, and with softening spirits have abol- 
ished capital punishment and the state is suffering 
the inevitable consequences. As a lad at college, 
leading one side of a senior debate, I opposed capi- 
tal punishment, thereby prejudicing my own think- 
ing for full thirty years. The conclusions were im- 
mature, unbiblical, and non-defensible! The modern 
state, attempting to exercise a tenderness toward 


AND THE EVANGELIST 23 


its criminal classes above that approved by the truth 
of God, is destroying the safety of the same. The 
recent strikes, with their attendant murders, will re- 
vive in many a memory at least of God’s Law in 
Leviticus. The Kansas City “Star”, commenting 
upon the insult to civilization experienced at Herrin, 
Illinois, said, “They have buried their dead in 
Illinois and American civilization is composing its 
face to that bland expression that has come to be 
its main reliance against all questioning, all charges 
and all doubts. But questioning and doubt are not 
buried; they can neither be shot to death nor reas- 
sured by that smooth countenance of society 
through whose hasty make-up the scars and ulcers 
of a raging disease still show. Americans must an- 
swer the question, “What of America?” It is being 
asked today all over this broad continent; asked by 
Americans; asked in shame, humiliation, and fear. 
Their country, their democracy, their laws, institu- 
tions and civilization are under indictment and the 
indictment goes unanswered. Obedience to law 
is liberty. So stands it written over the door of 
courthouses. Can Americans read that solemn injunc- 
tion and fail to acknowledge to themselves that, 
tested by it, there is no liberty in America? There is 
no liberty where there is no law. There is no 
liberty where there is no respect for human rights; 
where justice cannot be invoked both for the secur- 
ity of society and the punishment of its enemies. 
What of America? 

What is this but an awakening to the need of 
judgments against certain forms of sin named in 
Leviticus? Think of living in a state where a four- 
year-old child can be ruthlessly torn to pieces and 


24 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


heartlessly mangled by a lustful brute, but where 
his punishment by death for even such a crime is 
impossible. This case characterized and disgraced 
my own fair State and beautiful city. 

The Chicago “Tribune”, writing on “Terrorism 
at Gary, Indiana”, says, “Three men have confessed 
to derailing the Michigan Central Special at Gary, 
implicating others, and charging that they were 
acting under others. One of the culprits emigrated 
from Russia fifteen years ago. His name is Uselis. 
His companions were Petrowskp and Papourvitch. 
These accuse Albino Alessio of having part in the 
crime, and others are implicated, including two union 
officials. These men exhibit a morale as far removed 
from the American ideal as can be found. It is jungle 
morale, and what American society has to consider 
is why it persists in this country. All of the men 
immediately involved came from countries where 
oppression and tradition breed hatred of govern- 
ment and cheapen life. But America has neither 
enlightened them nor disciplined them. We are 
shocked at the disclosure of men plotting to destroy 
life on a large scale as a protest against their wages 
having been reduced a few cents an hour by a 
government board. We were horrified at the Her- 
rin massacre and we are outraged by the evidence, 
in the form of bridge and track destruction and 
sporadic acts of violence, that murder is considered 
by a certain class of workers as a legitimate resort 
to win strikes. 

“But why should we wonder at the persistence 
of violence in labor disputes when our administra- 
tion of the law is slack throughout the country? In 
Chicago there is a killing a day, by average, and of 


AND THE EVANGELIST 25 


those, one out of three is a murder. But there are 
few hangings. Most killers evade justice either 
wholly or in part. A woman kills her husband 
through jealousy and a sloppy-minded jury sets her 
free. An allegation of seduction generally consti- 
tutes a license to kill. Taking the law into her own 
hands, constituting herself judge, jury and execu- 
tioner, is a safe practice for any good-looking fe- 
male. As for gunmen and Camorrists, they live ac- 
cording to their own code, and the laws which run 
against the rest of us leave them untrammeled and 
unafraid. 

“In Russia, 1,500,000 lives were taken by the 
Soviet government without trial, and solely on the 
theory that in a class war of the proletariat, the 
bourgeois class must be exterminated. Men who 
think like that are not going to bother over destroy- 
ing a trainload of human beings to terrorize the 
rest.” 

And yet there are often those who say the death 
penalty should never be invoked. God’s Word for 
it, some men unfit themselves to be members of 
society, and that same society has a right to remove 
them. The laws of Leviticus revived, and justice 
executed, would work wonders for our government 
and for any government in the world. The simple 
truth is that except law shortly comes to be re- 
garded and just punishments inflicted, civilization 
is in certain danger of total collapse. This is not 
the hysteria of a minister, for the speech is soft be- 
side that of the Kansas City “Star” which calls 
America “the most lawless country in the world—a 
country of universal cynicism, skepticism, and in- 
human materialism; a country that raises a stately 


26 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


monument to Abraham Lincoln and forgets or open- 
ly jeers at his teaching; a country where class hates 
class, and class openly arms against class, shoot- 
ing and lynching and burning and dynamiting, while 
the law looks on, and the public is so indifferent 
that it even looks away; a country that throws open 
its gates to alien criminal and alien lunatic, to anar- 
chist, bomber and hired assassin, and where few 
Americans are born, few vote and few lead! * * If 
this republic could not endure half slave and half 
free, can it endure half law abiding and half law- 
less? Is there no leadership left to this land, on 
which so much of the last hope of humanity is fixed, 
to point out the course it is traveling and to call 
upon it with a voice of a Washington or a Lincoln 
or a Roosevelt to stay?” 

But we cannot pass without saying that this 
heart-sickening, social-debasing, government-destroy- 
ing result is the pure fruit of modernistic teaching ; 
to the effect that God is the Father of all men and 
that the laws of justice and judgment set forth in 
sacred Scripture are nothing more than man-made 
and often mistaken codes. When Divine authority 
is denied and even derided by men still privileged to 
occupy evangelical pulpits and determine the think- 
ing of youth, the prospect for society and state is 
gloomy in the last degree, for when the Divine laws 
are brought into contempt, human laws can hope to 
command no respect. 

But to conclude. 

The spiritual content of Leviticus was the encase- 
ment of Christianity. Joseph Parker, the one man 
who made the City Temple of London a world 
mecca for true worshipers of the true God, said, 


AND THE EVANGELIST 27 


“Leviticus is the Gospel of the Pentateuch, glisten- 
ing with purity, turning Law into music and spreading 
a banquet in the wilderness.” ‘There are men who 
can see no kinship between Old Testament types 
and New Testament truths. They might learn from 
the method of modern building. I found myself 
greatly interested in the construction of a great new 
church. For weeks I saw a large number of men 
putting up what proved eventually to be only an 
encasement or mould, and I marveled that they 
were making it of such light and apparently insuf- 
ficient material. I knew in my own judgment that 
it would not endure for all time, and was disposed 
to be critical of the workmen. But inquiry revealed 
the fact that this was but an encasement into which 
was to be poured the cement and that to be rein- 
forced by steel bars laid in the same, destined to 
eventuate in a building that no storm could destroy, 
no earthquake level, no fire burn. In the Old Testa- 
ment types and symbols we see the mould of Chris- 
tianity itself. The New Testament shows us the 
process of pouring in and filling up, strengthening, 
establishing, completing. The man who imagines 
the Old Testament is useless could be instructed by 
the modern builder, but better yet he could sit with 
profit at the feet of Paul, who writes to the Corin- 
thians, “Now all these things happened unto them 
(the Jews) for ensamples, and they were written for 
our admonition upon whom the ends of the world 
are come”. 

There isn’t an ethical code in Leviticus that has 
not developed into some better law of life in the 
Christian system. There isn’t an offering prescribed 
in Leviticus that did not prophesy with clearness, 


28 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


either the method of removing sin or the Man by 
whose sacrifice it should be put away. Even the 
laws of Leviticus look beyond man’s redemption to 
the day when the earth shall have been redeemed, 
and they, with all wisdom, be revived, and their per- 
fections for a kingdom “ruled in righteousness” 
proven, for not all the prophetic portions of Leviti- 
cus have yet found fulfillment. 

Certain feasts of the Lord have been fulfilled. 
The Christian has had his passover, and he has also 
had his Pentecost, and he has enjoyed a part of his 
atonement, but the completion of the atonement is 
yet to come, when the great High Priest, who has 
entered into the Holy of Holies shall reappear in 
glorious dress to become our King! Then the feast 
of trumpets will find its fruition, and the Sabbatic 
year its spiritual significance, and the year of Jubi- 
lee its perfect voice. We may look back to Leviticus 
if we will, and study its laws, its offerings, its feasts, 
with some profit; but the real intent of Leviticus 
is that of a telescope, and through it we may see the 
things destined yet to come to pass when God’s 
complete redemption for man and the world is 
wrought and our King in glory reigns! 


(Opa ralecdelae die 


THE MEANING OF THE 


WHOLE BURNT OFFERING 


ee al 
tat 


miey 





THE MEANING OF THE 
WHOLE BURNT OFFERING 


Leviticus, chapter 1. 


HE typology of the Old Testament is a scientific 

demonstration of the truth of the New. No man 
can study the symbols of the former without seeing 
the Saviour of the latter; and only the God of in- 
finite wisdom and a perfect plan can possibly have 
so interlinked and related them. 

In the Book of Exodus, God speaks to Moses 
“out of the mount”; His presence is a flame; His 
voice a thunder, and the people are made afraid. In 
the Book of Leviticus, He has come within the nar- 
row confines of the Holy of Holies, and now speaks 
out of the tabernacle of the congregation, and from 
the very spot known as the Mercy Seat. 


God, then, was a God of grace two thousand years 
before Christ was born. The revelation of His 
mercy did not wait manifestation in Jesus, but was 
revealed instead in types and symbols. 


Few of these interesting adumbrations are a more 
wonderful revelation of that grace than was the 
whole burnt offering. On careful study it falls 
naturally under four suggestions: The Spotless 
Sacrifice ; The Shedding of Blood; The Sinner’s Sub- 
stitute, and The Complete Surrender. 


THE SPOTLESS SACRIFICE 


“Speak unto the ar of Israel, and say unto them, 
If any man of you bring an offering unto the Lord, ye shall 
bring your offering of the cattle, even of the herd, and of 
the flock. 

“If his offering be a burnt sacrifice of the herd, let him 

31 


32 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


offer a male without blemish: he shall offer it of his own 

voluntary will at the door of the tabernacle of the congre- 

gation before the Lord. 

“And he shall kill the bullock before the Lord: and the 
priests, Aaron’s sons, shall bring the blood, and sprinkle 
the blood round about upon the altar that is by the door of 
the tabernacle of the congregation” (Lev. 1:2, 3,5). 

These symbols are full of suggestion. To three 
of them let me call special attention. 

There is a symbol in the sex. “Let him offer a 
male’. From that symbolism the law of the offer- 
ing never departed. It applies whether he take his 
offering from the herd, from the flock, or from the 
fowls. The masculine pronoun, “his”, is everywhere 
employed to express that sex. In other words, God, 
from the beginning, proposed that His final and 
sufficient sacrifice should be His Son. He never 
meant that Mary should express in her person any 
saving power; and He never intended that Mary 
Baker Eddy, or any other woman, should be His 
special ambassador or the world’s Saviour. When 
the great Prophet Isaiah received his wonderful 
revelation concerning the world’s Redeemer, he 
wrote: “Unto us a Child is born’, but immediately 
hastened to explain, 


“Unto us a Son is given; and the government shall be 
upon His shoulder; and His Name shall be called Wonder- 
ful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, 
The Prince of Peace” (Is. 9:6). 

Not a few of the false religions of the world have 
been originated by women. The true faith found 
its exponent in a man. God therein honors His own 
ordination, for Adam was first in the creation and 
our salvation rests with the Second Adam—the 
Lord from Heaven. 


There is a reason for this! The virility of the 


AND THE EVANGELIST 33 


mighty God is best expressed by “a man Child”. 
“Behold the Man” was not merely the flippant 
sentence of a petty potentate, but rather the ex- 
clamation of human wonder at the sign of God’s 
representative in a wicked world. 


The spotlessness is also suggestive. The further 
phrase is, “Let him offer a male without blemish”. 
The point at which Jesus Christ was differentiated 
from mankind was not that of sex, but rather that 
of sanctity. He was holy. Harmless as the sheep; 
undefiled as the dove, yet more holy than either. 
That is why Paul could write to the Hebrews (9: 


13, 14), 

“For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashés 
of an hetfer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the puri- 
fying of the flesh: 

“How much more shall the Blood of Christ, who through 
the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, 
pakas Sour conscience from dead works to serve the Living 
Jean Paul Richter had long contemplated the 

character of Jesus when at last he broke out with 
the words: “Jesus Christ, the holiest among the 
mighty, and the mightiest among the holy, who 
lifted with His pierced hand empires from their 
hinges, turned the stream of centuries out of the 
channel and still governs the ages.” 

Carnegie Simpson, writing regarding Jesus, ar- 
gues sanely enough, “More wonderful than His 
greatest miracle was His spotless character.” To 
this opinion even rationalists like Daub, Rosen- 
cranza, Watke; and liberal theologians like Hause, 
Schenkel; and destructive critics like Lipsis, have 
been compelled to consent; while believers never 
cease from marvel as they come closer to the heart 


34 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


of this matchless life. Many of them would join 
with Richard Wagner, the great musician, who 
wrote of Jesus: “We hear it said there have been 
saints and martyrs in the world; why should we 
hold that Jesus Christ alone among men is Divine? 
But all the saints and all the martyrs became such 
in the process of time, by Divine grace, by a special 
illumination, and experienced an inward conversion 
which transformed sinners into superhuman and 
sometimes anti-human beings. Buddha himself was 
a voluptuous prince living in his harem, when he 
was enlightened by the truth; in his renunciation of 
the pleasures of the world he appears to us heroic 
and sublime, but not Divine. In Jesus, on the con- 
trary, we find from the very beginning a complete 
holiness with no admixture of evil passions, an ab- 
solute purity of nature which appears to us Divine. 
And, nevertheless, there is in Him nothing gro- 
tesque, anti-human; His perfect Divinity is allied 
with a perfect humanity, which takes hold of men 
and inspires them with sympathy and compassion. 
His figure is unique. All other saints have had need 
of a Saviour, but He is Himself the Saviour.” 

The spontaneity of this offering is symbolic. “He 
shall offer it of his own voluntary will at the door of 
the tabernacle of the congregation before the Lord” 
(Lev. 1:3). From the beginning God intended that 
men should not be coerced in coming to Him; that 
sinners should not be dragged to salvation. The 
willing spirit He made fundamental in the whole 
process of redemption. ‘Whosoever will” was the 
law of the Old Testament as well as the opportunity 
of the New. David said: 


“Let all those that seek Thee, rejoice in and be glad in 


AND THE EVANGELIST 35 


Thee: and let such as love Thy salvation say continually, 

Let God be magnified” (Ps. 70:4). 

And Solomon put into a proverb, “They that seek 
the Lord understandeth all things’. Again it is writ- 
ten, “Blessed are they that keep His testimonies, and 
that seek Him with the whole heart’ (Ps. 119:2). Isa- 
lah joins in enjoining us, “Seek ye the Lord while He 
may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near’. 
There is not a Prophet of the Old Testament who 
fails to lay emphasis upon voluntary religion. Mal- 
achi, the last of that prophetic college, gives prom- 
ise of the Coming Lord, to them that “delight in 
Him”. A man, then, who wants salvation can find 
it. It is not only true, as the Lord said: “My people 
shall be willing in the day of My power’, but the con- 
verse is equally true—the day of His power is the 
one of our willingness, and our text is the illustra- 
tion of it. 


THE SHEDDING OF BLOOD 


The further study of our text brings us to a phrase 
from which certain critical spirits have started back, 
namely, “the shedding of blood’, and yet, for their 
sakes, we cannot afford to change the Scriptures, 


“He shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt offer- 
ing; and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for 
him. 

“And he shall kill the bullock before the Lord: and the 
priests, Aaron’s sons, shall bring the blood, and sprinkle the 
blood round about upon the altar that ts by the door of the 
tabernacle of the congregation” (Lev. 1:4, 5). 


Here again, three remarks will illuminate for us 
the wonderful lesson: 

The work was done by sinful hands. “He shall kill 
the bullock before the Lord”. Mark you, this was the 
sinner’s hand, not that of the priest. The crucifixion 


36 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


of Jesus Christ, while in perfect accord with the 
Divine prophecy, was not actuated by the Holy 
Spirit. On the Day of Pentecost, Peter exploited 
the animus of that murder, when, facing the men 
who fifty days before had nailed Him to the Cross, 
he said: 


“Ye men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of N azareth, 

a man approved of God among you, by miracles and won- 

ders and signs, which God did by Him in the midst of you, 

as ye yourselves also know; 

“Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and 
foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands 
have crucified and slain” (Acts 2:22, 23). 

At a later point in his ministry, when the high 
priests and certain Sadducees laid hands on the 
Apostles and put them in the common prison, but 
were later compelled by the fear of the people to 
bring them forth again, Peter was no sooner re- 
leased than he said to his opponents, “We ought to 
obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers 
raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree”. 

However plainly crucifixion was a part of the 
Divine plan, the criminality of the act in accom- 
plishing it, has never been called into question; and 
God dealt in judgment with the masters of that in- 
famy. Have you ever inquired into the fate of our 
Saviour’s murderers? Judas, who betrayed Him, 
hanged himself. The rope broke, and as he fell 
his very body was torn asunder and his bowels 
gushed out. Herod, who participated in it, is re- 
ported to have been dethroned by Cesar and to have 
died in infamy and exile. Pilate, who weakly 
allowed it, was stripped of the very power he was 
seeking to retain, and even banished from his land, 
and the tradition is that he put an end to his own 


AND THE EVANGELIST 37 


life rather than endure the infamy following him. 
The house of Annas was set upon by a mob and his 
son was first walked through the streets and then 
scourged. In 1870 Jerusalem was taken by the Ro- 
mans and thousands of the Jews were taken and 
many of them as cruelly crucified as the Saviour 
Himself, and thousands upon thousands of them 
were sold into slavery, the price for some of them 
being a more miserable pittance than that which 
they had paid to Judas for betraying their Lord. 
From that moment until this, Palestine has endured 
oppression, famine and war, and every Jew who 
cried, “Crucify Him”, has been the outcast of na- 
tions—ostracized, scorned and hated. Little did they 
know the meaning of their own words, or imagine 
the mighty God’s wrath against this crime when 
they said: “His blood be upon us and on our children”. 

But let no man imagine that these were the only 
hands that were stained with the Blood of the Son 
of God. I bring against you an indictment of par- 
ticips criminis, and I hang my head with shame and 
confess that I too had part in the driving of those 
cruel nails and in the thrust of that rending spear, 
for after all, it was sin that shed His Blood. 

The way of it was a ruthless slaughter. How 
marvelously this burnt offering typifies that Tack 
The bullock was not alone to be killed, but was to 
be flayed and cut into pieces. That is the way they 
treated the Son of God. They drove the nails into 
the tender hands; they thrust the spike through the 
bleeding feet ; they wreathed the brow with a crown 
of thorns; they stripped from His person the robe 
with which He would fain cover Himself; they 
gashed His side as though it were no greater sacri- 


38 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


fice than rending the bullock. One day He told them 
why; “Ye seek to kill Me, because My Word hath no 
place in you” (John 8:37). 

You remember Tintoretto, the great Italian 
painter, completed three crucifixes of Christ. One of 
these, now at Venice, represents the executioner as 
having completed his work, and as just reaching 
down from the ladder to take the title of the in- 
scription from the hands below. The three crosses 
are in a diagonal line. The thieves are painfully 
alive. They turn their faces to the spectators in 
mortal agony. It represents our Lord’s face in 
profile—noble, fine, calm, not a hint of suffering in 
any feature of it. The Virgin is seated on the 
ground, and at her side, St. John. They are looking 
and listening while He is evidently making known 
to the latter that he is to make Mary his mother. 
There is a partial truth in this work of art. There 
was a calmness of soul, of spirit that remained un- 
disturbed; but as for mortal agony, He suffered 
more than a thousand thieves could have done. And 
as for slaughter, His was more ruthless than was 
others—a thousandfold. That is why Isaiah wrote: 
“His visage was so marred more than any man, and 
His form more than the sons of men”. 


Did you ever stop to think how graphically, and 
yet how truly the same great Old Testament ‘Evan- 
gel depicted this scene? The scorn with which they 
looked upon Him, seeing no beauty in Him which 
they should desire? The. ruthlessness with which 
they rejected Him, despising the face of that Man 
of sorrows, and the spirit of that One acquainted 
with grief? “He was despised”; “He was stricken” ; 
“He was smitten”; “He was wounded” ; “He was op- 


AND THE EVANGELIST 39 


pressed” and “He was afflicted”. Strange words, 
these! They painted the mortal agony of the Man 
from Nazareth, the unspeakable suffering of the Son 
of God. His was a ruthless slaughter. 

And yet, the third suggestion is never to be for- 
gotten. 

This wickedness of man was Divinely overruled. 
God breaks in upon the animosity of man for the 
Divine purpose, saying “Thou shalt make His soul 
an offering for sin. * * And the pleasure of the Lord 
shall prosper in His hand. He shall see of the travail 
of His soul, and shall be satisfied” (Is. 53:10, 11). 

The marvel of God’s grace is that He can make 
everything “work together for good to them that 
love Him”. For where sin abounds, He can make 
grace much more to abound; yes, even the wrath 
of man He can change to His praise. I knew a man 
to go on a beastly drunk. For two weeks he never 
drew a sober breath. Yet out of that sin, God 
wrought his salvation, as Samson extracted honey 
from the festering corpse of a lion. Caiaphas per- 
haps did not know all the meaning of his own words 
when, in the time of his high priesthood, he said 
to the people: 


“Ye know nothing at all, nor consider that it is expedient 
for us, that one Man should die for the people, and that 
the whole nation perish not. 

“And this spake he not of himself; but being high priest 
that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that na- 
tion; 

“And not for that nation only, but that also He should 
gather together in one the children of God that were scat- 
tered abroad” (John 11:49-52). 


THE SINNER’S SUBSTITUTE 


The heart of the Gospel is in the whole burnt 
offering. The method of procedure here is not one 


40 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


whit different from that found in the New Testa- 
ment plan of salvation. The sacrifice once pro- 
vided, three steps are fundamental. 


The sinner must accept that sacrifice and confess 
it. He shall put his hands upon the head of the 
burnt offering; that is an acknowledgment that it 
stands in his stead. That is a public profession of 
his faith and that he has found a substitute. “To 
him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justi- 
fieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteous- 
ness’. Jesus, then, had a reason for demanding not 
only an acceptance but a public confession of Him- 
self. Concerning this necessity His Word is plain 
(Luke 12:8,9): 

“Whosoever shall confess Me before men, him shall the 

Son of Man also confess before the angels of God: 

“But he that denieth Me before men shall be denied be- 
fore the angels of God”. 

There are quite a few people who are professing 
to have repented their sins, who are claiming a cer- 
tain degree of sanctity, and who are yet striving to 
be secret disciples. Let it not be forgotten that 
there was a way in which this lamb was to be ac- 
cepted—that the atonement thereof was in public 
and could not be made in private; and the man who 
does not openly confess Christ has neither repented 
his sins, nor secured the substitute. 


The second suggestion of the text follows, name- 
yx 

For he shall be accepted. The reason is assigned. 
“To make atonement for him’. Now, in this connec- 
tion, the word “atonement” is of special interest. 
It means, “to be made one with Him”. Can any 
man who is trying to hide away the fact that he is 


AND THE EVANGELIST 41 


a follower of Jesus imagine that he is “at one” with 
God? 

Paul is an Apostle of grace to the Gentiles as well 
as of Gospel to the Jews, and Paul took pains after 
having discussed this whole burnt offering, to ad- 
monish his Hebrews, 

“Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be 
thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of 
God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant where- 
with he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done de- 
spite unto the Spirit of grace’? (Heb. 10:29). 

No wonder he follows that with the statement, 
“Tt is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Liv- 
ing God” (Heb. 10:31). 

No, the man who has experienced Christ, will 
publicly confess Christ. In other words, only the 
man who accepts the Lamb of God as his substitute 
and takes Him as both Saviour and Lord, will have 
that Son “accepted” for him “to make an atone- 
ment”. The priest alone could present the blood; 
for that service the sinner had no fitness. The blood 
must precede him into the Holy of Holies. He could 
never enter there until it had cleared the way. Let 
no one of us forget that the unregenerate man can 
shed innocent blood, but he cannot approach the 
holy God. The high priesthood of Jesus alone can 
open the path into the Divine Presence. After He 
has gone there with His own Blood, we can follow 
without danger of judgment. Esther clothed her- 
self with beauty and presented herself before the 
king, but she went not to plead her own cause, but 
rather that of her people instead. Our righteousness 
is as filthy rags; we have no garments with which 
to clothe ourselves that we might appear before 
God; but if the Great High Priest precedes us, He 


42 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


will bring back from the Lord of the House to every 
guest of Divine grace a wedding garment. 


Finally, 


THE COMPLETE SURRENDER 

The offering itself must be complete. The terms 
of the text are, “The priest shall bring it all, and burn 
it upon the altar” (Lev. 1:13). Not one whit could be 
held back. This contains a double suggestion. 
Christ kept nothing from the Cross. On it His 
body was broken; and there He made an offering 
of His soul for sin. He has a right, then, to demand 
a full surrender from those who have received the 
salvation there wrought out. Paul quite correctly 
called upon the Romans, saying, “I beseech you 
therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye 
present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable 
unto God, which is your reasonable service’ (Rom. 12: 
13) 

Only the men who have thus utterly devoted 
themselves have received the fullness of the Divine 
approval. Florence Nightingale said, “I have con- 
sciously kept nothing back from my God.” Dwight 
L,. Moody said, “If it remains to see what God could 
do through a perfectly surrendered man, I offer 
myself.” Morrison, the great missionary to China, 
said, “My desire, oh, Lord, is to engage where la- 
borers are most wanted.” George McCorkindale of 
Scotland, who met his death in a blizzard on the 
Alps, in 1870, has inscribed upon the stone that 
marks his resting place the words, “Where the 
Cross is there is the homeland.” 


The eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the He- 
brews is a chapter of devoted lives—the history of 


AND THE EVANGELIST 43 


men who put their all on the altar. It is a tale of 
Christian heroism that has thrilled all the centuries. 
Consecration is indeed the call of God to every 
Christian in every century. 


The offering must be clean. Mark the care in this 
connection. “His inwards and his legs shall he wash 
in water’ (Lev. 1:9). Without blemish with which 
to begin; without uncleanness with which to end. 
There never was a devil’s delusion exceeding that of 
the man who supposes that he can live an unclean 
life and yet combine it with true consecration. “Con- 
secration” is a word that contains more than the 
suggestion of strenuous endeavor. It has in its very 
heart the idea of sanctity. The complete Christian 
life, then, is not one that commences the day at an 
early hour and continues in effort long after the 
down-going of the sun, but takes little or no account 
of motive, thought or conduct. 


The offering must be consumed. “The priest shall 
burn it upon the altar, upon the wood that 1s upon the 
fire: it is a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, of 
a sweet savour unto the Lord” (Lev. 1:17). It was 
once written of Jesus. “The zeal of Mine house hath 
eaten Me up’. Of every follower of the Nazarene, 
men and angels should be able to say the same. 
What a poor notion of Christianity we have any- 
how! Some of us look upon it as.a mere watch- 
word with which to get to Heaven. Let it be re- 
membered that Christ said, “Not every one that saith 
unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom of 
Heaven; but him that doeth My will’. Some look 
upon it as a state to be paraded, like the Phart- 
see who stood and prayed with himself, and pro- 
nounced his virtues in the presence of the people. 


44 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


Let it not be forgotten that he went down to his 
house condemned. 

Some of us look upon it as a profession, as did the 
Levite and priest who passed by on the other side. 
Let us never forget that their conduct was excori- 
ated by the Son of God. What is the meaning of 
this teaching that the offering must be consumed? 
What else is it than that we are to give ourselves, 
body and soul and spirit to the service of Our King? 

There is but one supreme use for a splendid 
physique, and that is to do the work of God with 
effectiveness. There is but one true occasion of a 
keen intellect, and that is to accomplish the Divine 
purpose. There is but one occasion for a saint in 
the world, and that is sacrificial service. 

How poorly we interpret this plan of God! How 
abominably we employ our own powers! Some men 
regard their bodies as little better than instruments 
of sensuous excitement to be fed and fattened and 
excited and satisfied. Some men regard their in- 
tellects as commercial conveniences with which to 
amass fortunes and move like kings of finance in 
the midst of their fellows. Some men regard their 
souls as merely immortal instruments with which 
to defeat time and enjoy eternity. 


I call myself and you to a better conception. I 
believe every healthy body should be wholly the 
Lord’s, a splendid engine of service, wearing itself 
out with the Divine will, saying with Jesus, and say- 
ing with truthfulness, “Lord, I come to do Thy 
will”. Every mind should be a medium for the Mas- 
ter’s use to be dominated by the Spirit of God, and 
consecrated to a work that shall seek His glory; and 
every soul as an agent capable of giving eternal 


AND THE -EVANGELIST 45 


praise. Shall we eat then? Yes, not to gratify ap- 
petite only but to give further strength for a bigger 
task. Shall we educate them? Yes, for the cause 
of Christ and the Church. Shall we cultivate the 
soul? Yes, that men may see in us the image of our 
God and be filled not with fear, but with holy 
affection. 









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CHAPTER Hl, 


THE GREAT DAY OF ATONEMENT 


LEVITICUS, CHAPTER 16. 


“And the Lord spake unto Moses after the death of the 
two sons of Aaron, when they offered before the Lord, 
and died; 

“And the Lord said unto Moses, Speak unto Aaron thy 
brother, that he come not at all times into the holy place 
within the veil before the mercy seat, which ts upon the 
ark; that he die not: for I will appear in the cloud upon 
the mercy seat. 

“Thus shall Aaron come into the holy place: with a 
young bullock for a sin offering, and a ram for a burnt 
offering. 

“He shall put on the holy linen coat, and he shall have 
the linen breeches upon his flesh, and shall be girded with 
a linen girdle, and with the linen mitre shall he be attired: 
these are holy garments; therefore shall he wash his flesh 
in water, and so put them on. 

“And he shall take of the congregation of the Children 
of Israel two kids of the goats for a sin offering, and one 
ram for a burnt offering. 

“And Aaron shall offer his bullock of the sin offering, 
which is for himself, and make an atonement for himself, 
and for his house. 

“And he shall take the two goats, and present them be- 
fore the Lord at the door of the tabernacle of the congre- 
gation. 

“And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats; one lot 
for the Lord, and the other lot for the scapegoat. 

“And Aaron shall bring the goat upon which the Lord’s 
lot fell, and offer him for a sin offering. 

“But the goat, on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat, 
shall be presented alive before the Lord, to make an atone- 
ment with him, and to let him go for a scapegoat into the 
wilderness. 

“And Aaron shall bring the bullock of the sin offering, 
which is for himself, and shall make an atonement for 
himself, and for his house, and shall kill the bullock of 
the sin offering which is for himself: 

“And he shall take a censer full of burning coals of fire 
from off the altar before the Lord, and his hands full of 
sweet incense beaten small, and bring it within the veil: 

“And he shall put the incense upon the fire before the 
Lord, that the cloud of the incense may cover the mercy 
seat that is upon the testimony, that he die not: 

“And he shall take of the blood of the bullock, and 

48 


sprinkle it with his finger upon the mercy seat eastward ; 
and before the mercy seat shall he sprinkle of the blood 
with his finger seven times. 

“Then shall he kill the goat of the sin offering, that ts 
for the people, and bring his blood within the veil, and 
do with that blood as he did with the blood of the bullock, 
and sprinkle it upon the mercy seat, and before the mercy 
seat: 

“And he shall make an atonement for the holy place, 
because of the uncleanness of the Children of Israel, and 
because of their transgressions in all their sins: and so 
shall he do for the tabernacle of the congregation, that 
remaineth among them in the midst of their uncleanness. 

“And there shall be no man in the tabernacle of the 
congregation when he goeth in to make an atonement in 
the holy place, until he come out, and have made an atone- 
ment for himself, and for his household, and for all the 
congregation of Israel. 

“And he shall go out unto the altar that is before the 
Lord, and make an atonement for it; and shall take of 
the blood of the bullock, and of the blood of the goat, 
and put it upon the horns of the altar round about. 

“And he shall sprinkle of the blood upon it with his 
finger seven times, and cleanse it, and hallow it from the 
uncleanness of the Children of Israel. 

“And when he hath made an end of reconciling the 
holy place, and the tabernacle of the congregation, and the 
altar, he shall bring the live goat: 

“And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of 
the live goat, and confess over him all the imiquities of the 
Children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their 
sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall 
send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilder- 
NESS: 

“And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities 
unto a land not inhabited: and he shall let go the goat 
in the wilderness. 

“And Aaron shall come into the tabernacle of the 
congregation, and shall put off the linen garments, which 
he put on when he went into the holy place, and shall leave 
them there: 

“And he shall wash his flesh with water in the holy 
blace, and put on his garments, and come forth, and offer 
his burnt offering, and the burnt offering of the people, 
and make an atonement for himself, and for the people. 

Rete the fat of the sin offering shall he burn upon the 
altar, 


“And he that let go the goat for the scapegoat shall 
49 


wash his clothes, and bathe his flesh in water, and after- 
ward come into the camp. 

“And the bullock for the sin offering, and the goat for 
the sin offering, whose blood was brought in to make 
atonement tn the holy place, shall one carry forth without 
the camp; and they shall burn in the fire their skins, and 
thew flesh, and their dung. 

“And he that burneth them shall wash his clothes, and 
bathe his flesh in water, and afterward he shall come into 
the camp. 

“And this shall be a statute for ever unto you; that in 
the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, ye shall 
afflict your souls, and do no work at all, whether it be one 
of your own country, or a stranger that sojourneth among 
you: 

“For on that day shall the priest make an atonement 
for you, to cleanse you, that ye may be clean from all 
your sins before the Lord. 

“It shall be a sabbath of rest unto you, and ye shall 
afflict your souls, by a statute for ever. 

“And the priest, whom he shall anoint, and whom he 
shall consecrate to minister in the priest’s office in his fa- 
ther’s stead, shall make the atonement, and shall put on 
the linen clothes, even the holy garments: 

“And he shall make an atonement for the holy sanctuary, 
and he shall make an atonement for the tabernacle of the 
congregation, and for the altar, and he shall make an 
atonement for the priests, and for all the people of the 
congregation. 

“And this shall be an everlasting statute unto you, to 
make an atonement for the Children of Israel for all their 
sins once a year. And he did as the Lord commanded 
Moses’ (Lev. 16:1-34). 


50 


THE GREAT DAY OF ATONEMENT 


Leviticus, Chapter 16 

N speaking on “The Great Day of Atonement”, 

we properly employ the word “Great”. That pre- 
cise idea is in the original text itself, for there 
“yoma” means “the day”; and not only the day of 
the atonement, but the day as compared with all the 
other days of the year—the one day of transcendent 
importance, because the day when, through sacri- 
fice, men believed their souls cleansed from sin. 

At the very outset of this discourse I want to 
confess my deficiency as a teacher, because I have 
not spoken more often on the theme of the atone- 
ment. Surely it is worthy not only of presentation, 
but of repetition. There are many men who imagine 
that what they need from the pulpit is a novel sub- 
ject for every Sunday. But one could not study the 
work of pastors and churches without learning what 
Jacob Seiss has said, “The success of the pulpit, and 
the benefit of our weekly attentions upon the sanctu- 
ary depend much more upon the continuous reitera- 
tion of the same great truths of the Gospel than 
upon any power of invention in the preacher. It is 
not so much the presentation of new thoughts and 
brilliant originalities that converts men and builds 
them up in holiness, as the clear and constant ex- 
hibition of the plain doctrines of grace.” When Dr. 
Chalmers was asked to what he attributed his suc- 
cess in the ministry, he answered, “Under God, to 
one thing—repetition, repetition, repetition.” If 
there is any theme of the Scriptures which more 
than another would justify the adoption of Chal- 
mer’s practice, it is this theme of the atonement. 

51 


52 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


When once a man understands it in all its relation 
to the love of God and the lives of men, he is neces- 
sarily a good student of the Word, and well 
equipped for work. 

To discuss this theme is to excite in a certain 
class of minds a demand for a definition as the in- 
troduction to the discourse. That desire I must 
necessarily leave ungratified for the present. I be- 
lieve, with Henry Van Dyke, that there are several 
reasons why one should not attempt a definition of 
the atonement. The most important of these is that 
it is impossible; while others of secondary impor- 
tance are expressed by him in these terms: “The 
very attempt to define atonement so often leads to 
misconception and strife between men who believe 
in it with equal sincerity.” And again, “Such a 
definition is not needed.” The word itself declares 
all that even an inquiring mind can hope to have ac- 
complished—“to make God and man to be at one 
again”. Atonement is “at-one-ment”. And it will 
be seen that this whole sixteenth chapter of Leviti- 
cus is God’s appointment for bringing about a 
reconciliation between Himself and sinners; God’s 
appointment for bringing an end to that estrange- 
ment which sin always effects; God’s appointment 
for reuniting the divorced. I say “God’s appoint- 
ment’, since I believe that this chapter and other 
Scriptures show conclusively that He always has 
taken the initial steps, and for that matter, practical- 
ly all the steps in the word “atonement”. Truly, as 
Van Dyke remarks, “There is no Christian view of 
the atonement which does not begin with the love 
of God.” 


But, all attempts at definition aside, there are 


AND THE EVANGELIST 53 


great and fundamental truths suggested in this six- 
teenth chapter of Leviticus that will better illustrate 
for us the meaning of this word, and the significance 
of this day, than could the combined definitions of 
many minds. 


THE APPOINTMENTS OF THE DAY 


The importance of this day is emphasized in the 
fact that God minutely unfolds its every appoint- 
ment. It involves matters of such weighty moment 
that easily misled man cannot be trusted to deter- 
mine even the details thereof. 


The time itself was Divinely fixed. 


“This shall be a statute for ever unto you: that in the 
seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, ye shall 
afflict your souls, * * For on that day shall the priest 
make an atonement for you” (vss. 29, 30). 


There are those who see a definite reason for set- 
ting it on the tenth day of the seventh month. Some 
remind us that seven is the symbol of completeness, 
as is also ten; others declare that it is set at this 
time because it was the season of the harvest, an 
indication, therefore, that in the fullness of time the 
Son of Man should appear to put away sin, and so 
on. But the one thing concerning it about which we 
do not need to speculate is that God appointed that 
day and made it the only day in the year in which 
to make an atonement for the people. 

In that fact we find a plain lesson, namely, that 
Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many. 
There were daily sacrifices to show that men were 
daily in need of cleansing; but the sacrifice of atone- 
ment could occur but once in the entire circle of a 
season. Paul, in his Epistle to the Hebrews, says 


54 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


that “we are sanctified through the offering of the 
body of Jesus Christ, once for all”. And again, 
“This Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for 
sins, for ever, sat down on the right hand of God” 
(Heb. 10:10-12). It is an unspeakable consolation to 
those Christian hearts who love the Lord Jesus 
Christ, to learn that He needed to be crucified “but 
once”; that such was His infinite righteousness, that 
by a single death, He could pay the penalty of every 
broken law; and such the economy of God’s grace 
that the Cross would appear but once in human his- 
tory. If one Calvary would not lead men to re- 
pentance, it were useless to multiply crucifixions; 
if that grace, which led God to give His only begot- 
ten Son to death, did not beget repentance in the 
hearts of men, to repeat the gifts over and over 
would not only represent a judgment against sin 
which men would regard bloody and unjust, but al- 
so effect a depreciation of the infinite merits of the 
Son Himself. Hence, in “that Christ died, He died 
unto sin once”, according to the symbolism of the 
great day of atonement. 

The ceremonials of that day were definitely certi- 
fied. The way the high priest must enter into the 
holy place was clearly stated; the sin offering that 
he must make for himself, and the one he should 
present for the people are accurately described; the 
method of choosing the scape-goat, the ceremony of 
confessing over its head, its transmission into the 
wilderness, were all presented in their minutia; 
while the garments he should wear, the washings he 
should administer, the method of making the offer- 
ing, even the very spots where the blood should 
be sprinkled, are all laid before him to the last letter. 


AND THE EVANGELIST 55 


There are people in these days who give them- 
selves much to the work of eliminating from the 
Christian life the “non-essentials”, and summarily 
disposing of all inconvenient or distasteful cere- 
monies. They boast that “the spirit maketh alive 
and the letter killeth”; but often dispense with both 
letter and spirit. I confess, myself, a natural antag- 
onism to extended ceremonies, particularly cere- 
monies man made. 

My mother’s Quaker blood stirred easily in re- 
bellion against gowns and genuflections which have 
no warrant from the Word of God, and which com- 
monly represent the Pharisaical spirit. To me high- 
churchism is a reversal of the wheels of progress, 
an attempt to return to a religion which has served 
its ends and never was meant to do more than fore- 
shadow the substance of Christianity. But after all, 
I count it at once unwarranted and wicked to set 
aside Divinely-appointed ceremonies. It was no 
right of Aaron’s to change the number of the offer- 
ings, and the method of making them. It was not 
left to him to determine whether he should shed the 
blood of the bullock or of the goat, nor yet to say 
whether the blood should be sprinkled on the Mercy 
Seat, or left to stain the spot where it was shed. 
God, whose right it was, had already determined all 
of that, and Aaron’s part was implicit obedience. 

Beloved, if Aaron, the high priest, must be obe- 
dient, how much more the Christian, the common 
priest, for are not we “a kingdom of priests unto 
God”? The ceremonials of the New ‘Testament, 
therefore, are neither to be neglected nor changed 
by us. The Quaker’s custom of declining baptism 
and the Lord’s Supper is no more justified by Scrip- 


56 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


ture than would Aaron’s conduct have been had he 
selected a sheep instead of the bullock; or had he 
sprinkled water on the Mercy Seat instead of blood. 
The proposal to put anything else instead of the 
Divinely-prescribed ordinance of baptism is nothing 
more nor less than a departure from the ceremonial 
which God Himself has certified. “It is written, Ye 
are My friends if ye do whatsoever I have com- 
manded you”. You may be familiar with the story 
told concerning the green Irishman who had walked 
the streets of Philadelphia in a vain search for em- 
ployment. By and by he stumbled into Girard’s 
office and-inquired for a job. Girard answered, “Yes, 
sir, | can give you work. See that pile of bricks out 
there? Carry them over to the other end of the 
yard and cord them up.” By night-time the work 
was done. The Irishman reported, received his pay, 
and asked if there was any further employment. 
Girard said, “Yes, come in in the morning and car- 
ry that pile of bricks back to where you found it.” 
The Irishman reported early and went to work 
without a word. For several days Girard kept him 
carrying bricks from one side of the yard to the 
other until he proved the Irishman’s purpose to do 
what he was told and ask no questions. Then he 
gave the Irishman a new commission. “I want you 
to go down town and bid me off a lot of sugar.” The 
first bid he made, the people about him laughed, 
and when finally he bought the sugar, the auctioneer 
gruffly asked, “Who is going to pay for this?” “Mr. 
Girard,” the Irishman answered, “I am his agent.” 
This promotion was absolutely the result of obe- 
dience. And when God finds a man who stands 
willing to do just what He says and take all the 


AND THE EVANGELIST 57 


scoffs and jeers incident to that loyalty, He can be- 
stow upon him the mitre of true priesthood unto 
Himself. 

The purpose was fully proclaimed. It was expia- 
tion of sin—the sins of Aaron and his house (vs. 
6); the uncleanness of the sanctuary (vss. 15-17); 
the sanctification of the altar of burnt offering (vss. 
15,19), and for all the congregation of Israel (vss. 
20, 22, 23). If one should trace this word ‘“‘atone- 
ment” through its New Testament usages, he would 
find it employed in these connections: Paul, in his 
Epistle to the Romans, writes, “We joy in God 
through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have 
now received the atonement” (5:11); again, the 
same word is used in Romans 11:15, but is trans- 
lated “the reconciling of the world”, instead of “the 
atonement of the world”; and in II Corinthians 5: 
19, we have the “ministry of the reconciliation”, 
which ought also to be “the ministry of the atone- 
ment”. The drift of modern thought is in the direc- 
tion of saying that God’s purpose in all of this was 
to so prove His love to men as to bring them to be 
“at one” with Him. I say the drift, and that is 
just what I mean! The notion that in the atone- 
ment only man needs to be reconciled, is without the 
warrant of the Word; that he does need to be 
reconciled, there is no question, but as Barnes-Law- 
rence says, “A half truth is no truth.” Had the pur- 
pose of Calvary been to bring men to a willing com- 
munion with God, the sin offering might have been 
made to them, instead of being presented “before 
God.” The purpose here was twofold: To show 
men the side of Divine mercy, and thereby win them 
to an acceptance of the Divine love; and at the same 


58 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


time, to reveal unto them the side of the Divine 
justice, wherein the penalty of sin was only met by 
the outpouring of life itself. True, the times have 
changed since David lived, but his speech still has 
occasion when men depart from or fight against 
God—“Against Thee, Thee only have. sinned, and 
done this evil in Thy sight, that Thou mightest be 
justified when Thou speakest, and be clear when 
Thou judgest”. And every sinner who has not ac- 
cepted the Divine appointment has need of the 
Psalmist’s fear, expressed in the cry, “Cast me not 
away from Thy presence, and take not Thy Holy 
Spirit from me”. 


THE PRIEST FOR THAT DAY 


Turning again to this marvelous chapter, we will 
learn several things regarding this priest. 


First of all: He must be the high priest. 

“Thus shall Aaron come into the holy place with a young 
bullock for sin offering and a ram for burnt offering’ 
(vs. 3). 

And when Aaron is gone, only his successor in 
office can administer on that occasion. “The priest 
whom he shall anoint, and whom he shall conse- 
crate to administer the priest’s office in his father’s 
stead, shall make the atonement” (vs. 32). Mark 
you, it is not “a priest”; it is “the priest”. The com- 
mon priests might minister on other occasions; but 
not so on the day of atonement. What a lesson here! 
There are many services that the saints can render 
for us; but they have no power to secure from God 
our pardon from guilt. Some years ago in Chicago, 
I inquired of the Irish girl living in our home why 
she prayed to Mary. She answered, “Because she is 


AND THE EVANGELIST 59 


the mother of Jesus Christ and necessarily has in- 
fluence with God.” “But,” I replied, “the Scriptures 
distinctly declare, “Thou shalt have no other gods 
before Me’”, to which she brightly answered, “I 
don’t put Mary before Jesus, but between me and 
Jesus. I pray to her just as you ask one of your 
deacons to pray to God for you. What I want 
is to have her help me in securing favors from Je- 
sus.” To be sure, that would be the utmost that 
could be expected, but if one listened to the Catholic 
petition, he would certainly be led to think that 
Mary herself was the sufficient source of power and 
blessing. Yet it is written of Jesus of Nazareth, 
“Whom God raised from the dead. Neither is there 
salvation in any other. For there is none other name 
under heaven, given among men, whereby we must 
be saved”. Our approach to God, therefore, is not 
to be by the saints, the common priests, but our 
atonement comes through the Son—the Great High 
Priest. 


Again, He must be a holy priest. 


“And he shall take of the congregation, of the Children 
of Israel two kids of the goats for a sin offering, and one 
ram for a burnt offering. And Aaron shall offer his 
bullock of the sin offering, which is for himself, and 
aos an atonement for himself, and for his house” (vss. 
5,6); 


while verse 4 tells us that, 


“He shall put on the holy linen coat, and he shall have 
the linen breeches upon his flesh, and shall be girded 
with a linen girdle, and with the linen mitre shall he be 
attired: these are holy garments; therefore shall he wash 
his flesh in water, and so put them on”. 


Cleansed in the bath! Clothed in white linen! 
What an impressive type of that was Christ, “who 


60 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


was tempted in all points like as we are, yet with- 
out sin”! 

Our High Priest is without spot, or stain, or any 
such thing! When we fall at His feet we worship 
no unholy one, but that Son of God who said, “For 
their sakes I sanctify Myself’, and of whom it was 
said, “He was holy, harmless, undefiled, separate 
from sinners”. We are always shocked when we 
listen to a mortal man professing his perfection, or 
even claiming the Spirit without measure. We 
know he would come nearer to the truth if he said, 
with Isaiah, “I am a man of unclean lips, and I 
dwell among a people of unclean lips”; or with Da- 
vid, “I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my 
mother conceive me”; or with Job, “I abhor myself 
and repent in dust and ashes”; or with Ezra, “Oh, 
my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face 
to Thee, my God. For our iniquities are increased 
over our heads and our trespass grown up unto the 
heavens”. Paul was a marvelous Apostle, and as 
compared with fellow-men, religiously moral; and 
yet he had to say, “O wretched man that I am, who 
shall deliver me from the body of this death?” while 
the saintly John blushed, as he listened to the Ed- 
dyites of his day profess their purity, and penned 
these words to put them to shame, “If we say that 
we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth 
is not in us. * * If we say we have not sinned, we 
make God a liar, and His Word is not in us”. How 
sweet, then, to know that there is One able to en- 
ter into the Holy of Holies, and there make an 
atonement, because He is undefiled! No wonder 
Charles Spurgeon, speaking of Him who could stand 
face to face with the Father without a blush, be- 


AND THE EVANGELIST 61 


cause separate from sin, said of this Saviour, “Oh, 
bow and adore Him! For if He had not been a holy 
High Priest He could never have taken thy sins 
upon Himself; and never have made intercession for 
thee. * * O reverence and love that spotless One, 
who on the great day of atonement took away thy 
guilt!” 
THE PEOPLE AND THAT DAY 


It was to be a day of rest from wonted duties. 


“And this shall be a statute for ever unto you; that in 
the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, ye 
shall afflict your souls, and do no work at all * * * * 
It shall be a Sabbath of rest unto yow’ (vss. 29, 31). 


Perhaps no man will ever be able to measure 
what “Sabbath rest” has meant for the souls of the 
people. Six days in the week are given to labor 
and pleasure. So assiduously do men follow both 
these pursuits that they have little time to think 
upon their souls. When God gave the fourth com- 
mandment, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep 
it holy”, He had more in mind the souls of men than 
their bodies. It can be scientifically demonstrated 
that the rest of one day in seven is essential to the 
best physical service and endurance. I noticed re- 
cently that some German professor pretends to 
have discovered an apparatus for measuring brain 
and nerve fatigue. If the time should ever come 
when the spirit of man could have its growth or 
retardation as clearly evidenced by some process as 
scales and photography can mark those of the body, 
it would then be seen what the Sabbath is to the 
soul—the meditation of that day; the truth brought 
from press and pulpit, and sacred books; the songs, 
prayers, mission services, and family altars—how 


62 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


far these all go to rehabilitate the neglected, jaded 
spirit, who can tell? The man who pleads for the 
Sabbath in this country, as against that secularizing 
spirit everywhere present, is the man who pleads 
for the salvation of souls as against the success of 
Satan. 


It was a day for contrition of spirit. 


“Ve shall afflict your souls” (vs. 20). 
“And ye shall afflict your souls by a statute for ever” 

(vs. 31). 

We often sing, 

“Weeping will not save me, 

~ Though my face were bathed in tears 
That could not allay my fears, 
Could not wash the sin of years. 
Weeping will not save me.” 

That is true. On the other hand, it is almost as 
true that those who weep not cannot be saved. 
“Godly sorrow worketh repentance”. In vain has 
God prepared and proffered His atonement for men 
who do not repent. When on the day of Pentecost, 
multitudes came to Peter and the other Apostles 
asking, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” 
Peter promptly responded, “Repent and be baptized, 
every one of you, for the remission of sins”. 

And in this same Book of Leviticus we find that 
a man, failing in this, did all else in vain, for it is 
distinctly written, “Whatsoever soul it be that shall 
not be afflicted in that same day, he shall be cut off 
from among his people” (Lev. 23:29). And the Law 
abides for the Christian dispensation, since Christ 
Himself taught, “Except ye repent ye shall all like- 
wise perish”. 

It was the day for the absolution of the people. 
There are some very gracious things in this Old 


AND THE EVANGELIST 63 


Testament teaching, “Ye shall make an atonement for 
the priests and for all the people of the congregation. 
An atonement for the Children of Israel for all their 
sins, once a year’. It is the same wide-sweeping sal- 
vation you have seen in the New Testament. That 
“God so loved the world, that He gave His only be- 
gotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should 
not perish”, presented to the Israel of the Old Testa- 
ment the same evidence of grace in the great day 
of Atonement. The goat slain spoke of sins re- 
mitted; and the scape-goat, sent into a land not 
inhabited, spoke of sins removed “as far as the east 
is from the west” to be “remembered against them 
no more for ever”. Ah, the Gospel is in the Book of 
Leviticus! Charles Spurgeon speaks of a picture 
he had seen in the Art Union of a scape-goat dying 
in the wilderness. It was represented with a burn- 
ing sky above it, its feet sticking in the mire, sur- 
rounded by hundreds of skeletons. Spurgeon justly says 
of this picture, “It was a piece of gratuitous nonsense,” 
since this goat was sent into a land uninhabited, and 
went where no man was to see it or to know any- 
thing of its subsequent fate—just as our sins are 
lost sight of, “put behind the Lord’s back” as He 
Himself says, never to be seen again. Thank the 
Lord for such a removal! Thank God for such a 
religion! Van Dyke remarks, “If any one should 
ask therefore, ‘What has the atonement done for 
you?’ our answer should be broad enough to cover 
all our needs. With Christ, God has freely given us 
all things—an assurance of mercy, divinely sealed; 
a satisfaction of the Law, divinely perfected; a ran- 
som from evil, divinely accomplished; a sacrifice for 
sin, divinely offered; a covenant of peace; a spirit 


64 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


of consecration; a good Shepherd of our souls; a 
seed of everlasting life—and if there be any other 
thing that sinners need for their salvation, doubt- 
less this also is waiting to be discovered in the 
atonement.” 


THE PROPHECIES OF THAT DAY 


A talk on The Great Day of the Atonement would 
not be complete without some reference to the 
prophecies of that day. But no one would expect all 
the points of prophecy to receive proper attention 
in a single discourse. To four of these I call your 
attention. 

There is, here, the prophecy of the humiliation of 
Jesus Christ. It was the day when the high priest 
had to disrobe himself of his more magnificent dress 
for the one of plainest cloth; the day when he had 
to subsist on slender diet; the day when he had to 
be subjected to the severest strain of an overwhelm- 
ing service, so much so, that it was commonly feared 
that the high priest would die in the Holy of Holies. 
What a picture of Him “who being in the form of 
God, and thinking it not robbery to be equal with 
God, made Himself of no reputation, and took upon 
Him the form of a servant, and humbled Himself 
and became obedient unto death”. 


If the great high priest cast aside this golden 
mitre and put off this magnificent dress, and did the 
humbler duties of the ordinary priest on the day of 
atonement, Jesus Christ accepted for that same day 
a crown of thorns, a robe of mockery, and in His 
hand was put a reed instead of a scepter, to deepen 
His abasement. That day He “who was rich for our 
sakes became poor; that through His poverty we 


AND THE EVANGELIST 65 


might be made rich’. For The Great Day of the 
Atonement was the day when, on Calvary’s brow, 
Christ died. 

It was, therefore, also a prophecy of the crucifixion 
of Jesus Christ. Speaking of the goat to be offered, 
Charles Spurgeon says, “Come and see it die. The 
priest stabs it. Mark it in its agonies; behold it 
struggling for a moment; observe the blood as it 
gushes forth. Christians, ye have here your Sa- 
viour!” I will not stir your sorrow by filling out 
this picture to the full, thereby giving you a vision 
of the death agonies of the Son of God. For the 
atonement means more than the dying. It stops 
not with the experience of that suffering, but sweeps 
in the purpose and effect of it all. To illustrate: In 
the city of New York, on Broadway, near the post 
office, there is a bronze statue. Stopping before it, 
you see only a dying man—arms pinioned, feet tied, 
the shirt-collar thrown open—and as you study the 
agonies of that face, it seems only an execution. But 
read the subscription: 

“I regret that I have but one life to give for my country.” 
“Nathan Hale.” 

Lo, the beauty breaks out where you had not be- 
held it; and the pain you felt a moment ago gives 
place to patriotism; and the sadness of that sight 
only serves to inspire in you the noblest sentiments. 
That is the interpretation of the Cross. 


There is also here the prophecy of the intercession 
of Jesus. An high priest carrying the blood of the 
goat into the Holy of Holies, and offering the in- 
cense unto the Lord, predicted that day when Christ 
for us should “enter within the veil”, not with the 
blood of goats and calves, but with “His own 


66 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


Blood”, and at “the right hand of God make inter- 
cession for us”. After all, what is your hope of win- 
ning at the throne of God? ‘The Molossians of old 
are said to have had a custom of this sort. When, 
for any reason they failed to secure a favor from 
their king, they would find the king’s son, and tak- 
ing him into their arms they would carry him into 
the presence of the father, and let him plead their 
cause. And lo, when they hit upon this expedient 
they were never sent away empty. 


Is that the secret of success with those men and 
women who prevail in prayer? Have they found 
out that better than their petitions is the interces- 
sion of the Great High Priest? Do they sing with 
understanding, 

“The Father hears him pray, 

His dear anointed One; 

He cannot turn away, 

Cannot refuse His Son; 

The Spirit answers to the Blood, 
And tells us we are born of God”? 

Finally, — 

The day of atonement has in it the prophecy of 
the exaltation of Jesus Christ. When the work of 
the high priest within was finished, then he put on 
again his goodly raiment; then his brow was 
adorned with the golden mitre; gold, purple, and 
jewels marked his appearance; and no sooner was 
his face seen than the silver trumpet sounded, and 
the feast of trumpets thrilled the land. Ah, beloved, 
Jesus has not yet taken on His glorious dress! In 
that same body of humility upon which the Apostles 
looked after His resurrection, seeing the marks in 
His hands, and the open wounds in His side, He 


pleads before the throne. But one day, He who was 


AND THE EVANGELIST 67 


our Prophet and is now our Priest, will have finished 
His office there, and He will come forth the second 
time “without sin, unto salvation’—our KING. 
Then the jubilee of the ages will be on. Blessed be 
God, that day draws nearer! He calls from the 
heavens, saying, “Surely I come quickly”. As 
Gordon said, “Even the shadows point to that dawn. 
As I wake in the twilight in the morning I often see 
the glimmer of the street lamps falling upon the 
walls of my chamber; but in a little while the lamp- 
lighter passes by and turns out one after another, 
leaving the room in deeper darkness than it had 
been at any time during the whole night. Yet I 
know that he is only putting out the street lamps 
because the sun is about to rise, and flood all the 
heavens with his light. So the darkness heralds 
the dawn.” 

The story is told that a girl of fifteen, having been 
suddenly paralyzed, and left also nearly blind, heard 
the examining physician say to her parents, “Poor 
child, she has seen her best days,” to which she re- 
sponded instantly, “No, doctor; my best day is yet 
to come ‘when I shall behold the King in His 


>» 39 


Beauty’. 








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CHAPTER IV, 


THE SABBATIC YEAR AND THE YEAR 


OF JUBILEE 


LEVITICUS iZ5H-bSt 


“And the Lord spake unto Moses in Mount Sinai, say- 
ing, Speak unto the Children of Israel, and say unto them, 
When ye come into the land which I give you, then shall 
the land keep a Sabbath unto the Lord. 

“Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou 
shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruit thereof; 

“But in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest unto 
the land, a sabbath for the Lord: thou shalt neither sow 
thy field, nor prune thy vineyard. 

“That which groweth of its own accord of thy harvest 
thou shalt not reap, neither gather the grapes of thy vine 
undressed: for it is a year of rest unto the land. 

“And the sabbath of the land shall be meat for you; 
for thee; and for thy servant, and for thy maid, and for 
thy hired servant, and for thy stranger that sojourneth 
with thee. 

“And for thy cattle, and for the beast that are in thy 
land, shall all the increase thereof be meat. 

“And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto 
thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven 
sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years. 

“Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubile to 
sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day 
of the atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound through- 
out all your land. 

“And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim 
liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants 
thereof: tt shall be a jubile unto you; and ye shall re- 
turn every man unto his possession, and ye shall return 
every man unto his family. 

“A jubile shall that fiftieth year be unto you: ye shall 
not sow, neither reap that which groweth of itself in it, 
nor gather the grapes in it of thy vine undressed. For it 
is the jubile; it shall be holy unto you: ye shall eat the 
increase thereof out of the field. In the year of this 
jubile, ye shall return every man unto his possession. And 
if thou sell ought unto thy neighbour, or buyest ought 
of thy neighbour’s hand, ye shall not oppress one another: 

“According to the number of years after the jubile thou 
shalt buy of thy neighbour, and according unto the num- 
ber of years of the fruits he shall sell unto thee: 

“According to the multitude of years thou shalt increase 
the price thereof, and according to the fewness of years 
thou shalt diminish the price of it: for according to the 

70 


number of the years of the fruits doth he sell unto thee. 

“Ve shall not therefore oppress one another; but thou 
shalt fear thy God: for I am the Lord your God. Where- 
fore ye shall do my statutes, and keep my judgments, 
and do them; and ye shall dwell in the land in safety. 

“And the land shall yield her fruit, and ye shall eat 
your fill, and dwell therein in safety. 

“And if ye shall say, What shall we eat the seventh 
year? behold, we shall not sow, nor gather in our increase: 

“Then I will command My blessing upon you in the 
sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for three years. 

“And ye shall sow the eighth year, and eat yet of old 
fruit until the ninth year; until her fruits come in ye shall 
eat of the old store. 

“The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is 
Mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with Me. 

“And in all the land of your possession ye shall grant a 
redemption for the land. 

“Tf thy brother be waxen poor, and hath sold away some 

of his possession, and if any of his kin come to redeem tt, 
then shall he redeem that which his brother sold. 

“And if the man have none to redeem it, and himself 
be able to redeem it; 

“Then let him count the years of the sale thereof, and 
restore the overplus unto the man to whom he sold it; 
that he may return unto his possession. 

“But if he be not able to restore it to him, then that 
which is sold shall remain in the hand of him that hath 
bought it until the year of jubile: and in the jubile it 
shall go out, and he shall return unto his possession. 

“And if a man sell a dwelling house in a walled city, 
then he may redeem it within a whole year after tt 1s sold; 
within a full year may he redeem it. And if it be not 
redeemed within the space of a full year, then the house 
that ts in the walled city shall be established for ever to 
him that bought it throughout his generations: it shall not 
go out in the jubile. 

“But the houses of the villages which have no wall 
round about them shall be counted as the fields of the 
country: they may be redeemed, and they shall go out in 
the jubile. 

“Notwithstanding the cities of the Levites, and the hous- 
es of the cities of their possession, may the Levites re- 
deem at any time. 

“And if a man purchase of the Levites, then the house 
that was sold, and the city of his possession, shall go out 
in the year of jubile: for the houses of the cities of the 
Levites are their possession among the Children of Israel. 

71 


But the field of the suburbs of their cities may not be 
sold; for it is their perpetual possession. 

“And if thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen in decay 
with thee; then thou shalt relieve him: yea, though he be 
a stranger, or a sojourner; that he may live with thee. 

“Take thou no usury of him, or increase: but fear thy 
God; that thy brother may live with thee. 

“Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, nor 
lend him any victuals for increase. 

“IT am the Lord your God, which brought you forth out 
of the land of Egypt, to give you the land of Canaan, and 
to be your God. 

“And if thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen 
poor, and be sold unto thee; thou shalt not compel him 
to serve as a bondservant: 

“But as a hired servant, and as a sojourner, he shall be 
with thee, and shall serve thee unto the year of jubile: 

“And then shall he depart from thee, both he and his 
children with him, and shall return unto his own family, 
and unto the possession of his fathers shall he return. 

“For they are My servants, which I brought forth out 
of the land of Egypt: they shall not be sold as bondmen. 

“Thou shalt not rule over him with rigour; but shall 
fear thy God. 

“Both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou 
shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about 
you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. 

“Moreover of the children of the strangers that do so- 
journ among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their 
families that are with you, which they begat in your land: 
and they shall be your possession. 

“And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your 
children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they 
shall be your bondmen for ever: but over your brethren 
the Children of Israel, ye shall not rule one over another 
with rigour. 

“And if a sojourner or stranger wax rich by thee, and 
thy brother that dwelleth by him wax poor, and sell 
himself unto the stranger or sojourner by thee, or to the 
stock of the stranger’s family: 

“After that he is sold he may be redeemed again; one 
of his brethren may redeem him: 

“Either his uncle, or his uncle’s son, may redeem him, 
or any that ts nigh of kin unto him of his family may 
redeem him; or if he be able, he may redeem himself. 

“And he shall reckon with him that bought him from 
the year that he was sold to him unto the year of jubile: 
and the price of his sale shall be according unto the num- 

72 


ber of years, according to the time of an hired servant 
shall it be with him. 

“If there be yet many years behind, according unto them 
he shall give again the price of his redemption out of 
the money that he was bought for. 

“And if there remain but few years unto the year of 
jubile, then he shall count with him, and according unto 
his years shall he give him again the price of hs redemp- 
tion. 

“And as a yearly hired servant shall he be with him: 
sila the other shall not rule with rigour over him in thy 
sight. 

“And if he be not redeemed in these years, then he shall 
go out in the year of jubile, both he, and his children with 
him, 

“For unto Me the Children of Israel are servants; they 
are My servants whom I brought forth out of the land of 
Egypt: I am the Lord your God” (Lev. 25:1-55). 


73 





THE SABBATIC YEAR AND THE YEAR 


OF JUBILEE 
Leviticus 25:1-55 


HIS twenty-fifth chapter of Leviticus contains 
at once the appointment and description of the 
Sabbatic Year and the Year of Jubilee. 
I invite you, therefore, to the study of “The Sab- 
batic Year and the Year of Jubilee” as these are 
set forth in the text of our proposed study. 


THE SABBATIC YEAR 


In the very constitution of this Sabbatic year, God 
again emphasized the importance of the number 
seven. The Roman system of numerals is based upon 
tens; but our God counts by sevens. Seven great 
period days to finish creation; seven years of plenty 
and seven years of famine; the seventh time they 
compassed Jericho; the seventh time Elijah’s serv- 
ant looked for the coming cloud; seven lights in the 
candlestick; the seven churches; the seven spirits; 
seven vials; seven trumpets; and so it was seven 
years when the Sabbatic was reached; and at the 
end of seven sevens, the year of Jubilee. However, 
the Sabbatic year has more significance than that of 
showing God’s method of reckoning. 


By it, God expressed His supreme sovereignty. 


“Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou 
shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruit thereof ; 
But in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest unto 
the land, a sabbath for the Lord: thou shalt neither sow 
thy field, nor prune thy vineyard” (Lev. 25:3, 4). 
Notwithstanding the opening sentence of Genesis, 

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the 

earth”, men are always being tempted to appropri- 

ate the land and call it their own, and God is always 
75 


76 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


reminding them of the fact that the land is His. 
This Sabbatic year was only another way of say- 
ing what the Psalmist so clearly asserted, 


“The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof; the 
world, and they that dwell therein. For He hath founded it 
upon the seas, and established it upon the floods’ (Ps. 
24:I-2). 


The principle reason why men have so often 
denied their stewardship unto God, and even Chris- 
tian men called into question the idea involved in 
the very term “stewardship”, grows out of our hav- 
ing forgotten that the land is the Lord’s. You may 
remember that Hood, in his volume, “Cromwell”, 
speaks of how, in 1563, the great warrior dissolved 
“The Rump”, and said concerning the departure of 
its members, “We did not hear a dog bark at their 
going”; but afterward reminds us, “Henceforth, un- 
til 1858—a brief parenthesis of time, indeed, in the 
history of the country—he governed the country 
absolutely. Ina history so brief as this we shall not 
attempt to detail the circumstances of those trouble- 
some years. Alas! all the battles had been easy to 
win compared with the task of uniting a distracted 
realm.” So it would almost seem as if God had less 
trouble in bringing the earth into existence, and dis- 
sipating the darkness in which it was enveloped; in 
carpeting it with green, filling its fields and seas 
with all animal life, than He has had to retain His 
hold upon it since man was made, due to our dis- 
position to assert claim to all that comes in sight. 
And yet, as Campbell Morgan has put it, “God is 
absolute monarch, wherever He is King at all.” He 
not only rules the realm; He owns it. Cromwell had 
changed the form of government, and the conditions 
of the people; but God creates both, and to deny His 


AND THE EVANGELIST 717 


ownership is atheism. When He commanded the 
Sabbatic year, He spake only that which He had the 
right, and gave a needed reemphasis to His com- 
plete ownership of the earth! 

Again, through it He emphasized the value of 
times and seasons. 

“But in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest unto 
the land, a sabbath for the Lord; thou shalt netther sow 
thy field, nor prune thy vineyard” (vs. 4). 

How significant the coupling of the two sugges- 
tions—‘“rest from wonted labor”, and “the sabbath 
for the Lord”. What mind has ever yet imagined 
the untold benefits—physical, mental, moral, and 
spiritual—growing out of the fact that in the early 
days God set aside every seventh day as a period in 
which men should rest from labors, and worship be- 
fore His face? We sometimes speak of the European 
Sabbath and the American Sabbath, and we mean 
by those terms that the people this side of the wa- 
ters keep the Lord’s day more strictly than those 
who live beyond the English channel. And we know 
perfectly well that our blessings have been in pro- 
portion to our Sabbath-keeping; that our civiliza- 
tion depends upon it, and is measured by it. There 
was a wisdom which belonged alone to God in the 
fourth commandment, “Remember the Sabbath day 
to keep it holy”; and we may believe there was 
equal wisdom in the Sabbatic year. The great com- 
plaint that men are now making for excuse as a vio- 
lation of the Sabbath and absence from all assem- 
blies of God’s saints is, “We are so driven with 
work we have not time to attend.” But the man who 
says that opposes the wisdom of God with the 
wickedness of human folly. He has, possibly with- 


78 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


out intention, given himself over to satanic sug- 
gestion. The devil—who is the father of lies—has 
deceived him into supposing that a man’s life con- 
sisteth of “the abundance of things which he pos- 
sesseth”, and has led him to discredit the value of 
the fourth commandment, and the inspiration of 
Paul’s appeal to the Hebrews, “Let us consider 
one another to provoke unto love and to good 
works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves to- 
gether, as the manner of some is”. Wise men can- 
not forget that our civilization is not in our me- 
chanics, nor yet in our mental acumen. Unless it 
rest in morals and in the religion that is in Jesus 
Christ it is worthless. 

The Sabbatic year was well adapted to special re- 
ligious privileges. If now the people were willing 
to give one day out of every seven, and one year 
out of every seven, to the worship of God in private 
devotions and by multiplied public assemblies, who 
can imagine the great moral and spiritual results, or 
tell the measure of improvements which would 
come into our civilization? We should not forget 
the declaration of Jesus Christ, “No man can serve 
two masters; ye cannot serve God and mammon”. 
And the man whose mind is so set upon money mak- 
ing that he dares despise God’s seventh of time for 
the sake of increasing his exchequer, cannot cover 
away his sin by crying, “I am compelled to support 
my family,’ for he knows that a support is one 
thing, and laying up treasures on earth and living 
in luxury is another thing; and that this latter thing, 
indulged in in spite of God’s sacred Word, may cost 
him his soul. 


The late Dr. A. C. Dixon told the story of that 


AND THE EVANGELIST 79 


young lawyer who was a candidate for Congress, 
who, when approached by one of Dixon’s friends 
upon the matter of personal religion, said, “I am 
too busy to give this attention now.” Three years 
later a messenger, sent by this lawyer, rushed into 
the minister’s house, and reported his sickness and 
his desire to see the man of God. But when he 
reached his bedside it was too late. He was de- 
lirious, and in his wild delirium was raving in pro- 
fane speech; and all who listened knew that he, like 
Judas Iscariot, had, for a few pieces of silver, sur- 
rendered his soul to the Adversary. How pertinent 
the question of Jesus, “What shall it profit a man if 
he gain the whole world and lose his own soul”? 

In this Sabbatic year God also emphasized de- 
pendence upon His Providences. People are very 
prone to think they must work every year in order 
to live at all. But such a philosophy ignores the 
Scripture, “Every good gift and every perfect gift 
cometh down from above, from the Father of 
lights”. These people were concerned at this point, 
and so they put the question, 


“What shall we eat the seventh year? behold we shall 
not sow, nor gather in our increase?” 


To which God replies, 


“Then I will command My blessing upon you in the sixth 
year, and it shall bring forth fruit for three years. And ye 
shall sow the eighth year, and eat yet of the old fruit until 
the ninth year; until her fruits come in ye shall eat of the 
old store” (vss. 20-22). 


The whole philosophy of this dependence upon 
God was spoken when Satan tempted the Son of 
God to convert stones into bread, and thereby sati- 
ate His hunger. But Jesus answered, “Man does 
not live by bread alone, but by every word that 


80 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


proceedeth out of the mouth of God”. In fact, the 
man who lives by bread alone does not live; the 
man who lives by the Word of God, though he may 
suffer a famine for bread, is yet enjoying an abun- 
dant life. The man who lives by the Word of God 
is in less danger of a famine for bread than the man 
who despises that same Word. Of those who come 
to me seeking material aid, for every righteous man 
there are five unrighteous; for every one who loves 
God and keeps His commands, there are ten who 
regard Him not and who daily transgress His dec- 
alogue. I doubt if there is any company of peo- 
ple more kindly cared for than those who keep the 
commands of the Lord, and put their trust in His 
promises. 

Surely one of the most successful men in modern 
times from all standpoints—physical, mental, moral, 
and spiritual—was George Mueller. His physique 
was almost perfect, and when sick he knew how to 
call upon the Great Physician. He was well into the 
nineties before God took him. His mental equip- 
ment was such that wherever he went on his trips 
around the world, he commanded great audiences. 
His moral character was the admiration of his fel- 
lows, while his Christian life was the crown of all, 
and the only adequate secret of his success. When 
George Mueller ceased from the question, “What 
shall I eat, what shall I drink, wherewithal shall I 
be clothed?” saying in his heart, “I will do the will 
of God and leave compensation entirely to Him,” 
he testifies to freedom from anxiety concerning his 
supplies, and to a sense of dependence upon an un- 
limited God. And one who had observed the great 
amounts of money which came to his hand for use in 


AND THE EVANGELIST 81 


his Christian enterprises, was led to confess, “You 
can do such and such things, and need not to lay 
by, for the church in the whole of Devonshire cares 
about your wants.” To which Mueller replied, “Yes, 
the Lord can use not merely any of the saints 
throughout Devonshire, but those throughout the 
world as instruments to supply my temporal 
wants.” 


If we remembered that the very fertility of the 
earth, as it is quickened by rain and sunshine, 
is with the Lord, we might also be impressed with 
the fact that our best dependence is not in our in- 
dustry, nor yet in our ingenuity, but in His Provi- 
dence, whose promises fail not to them that trust 
Him. More and more am I impressed with the fact 
that to be a Christian, in the truest sense of that 
term, is to feel deeply the fact concerning every 
successful step we take in this life that Cromwell 
expressed when he announced the victory of the 
battle of Naseby to the Speaker of the House of 
Commons, “This is none other but the hand of God, 
and to Him alone be the glory, wherein none are to 
share with Him.” 


THE YEAR OF JUBILEE 


As we have seen in the reading of this chapter, 
God presents not only a Sabbatic year but a year of 
Jubilee. The seventh year was to be celebrated as 
unto Him; and at the end of seven sevens, an addi- 
tional year was to be set aside as to the Lord and 
called “The Year of Jubilee”. The Hebrew word 
“vyobel” means a musical instrument, and calls at- 
tention to the fact that this particular feast occurred 
not only at the end of the seventh seven years, but 


82 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


was introduced by the sound of the trumpet. Bonar 
says, “Like the striking of the clock from the tur- 
ret of some cathedral, announcing that the season 
of labor for the day is closed, so sounded the notes 
of the silver trumpet from the sanctuary, announc- 
ing that the great year of redemption and rest had 
come—the year of release and restoration through- 
out all Israel.” Think what it meant to hear this 
trumpet sound! 

First of all, it meant rest to the favored land. 
God’s care for the earth is not limited to man. 
When Jonah complained because Nineveh was not 
destroyed, Jehovah replied, “Shall not I spare Nine- 
veh, that great city, wherein are more than six score 
thousand people that cannot discern between their 
right hand and their left hand, and also much cat- 
tle?” Jesus, who knew the Father best, affirmed 
that not a sparrow falleth in the streets, but He is 
moved by its agony. But this year of Jubilee takes 
a step further into nature and shows God’s interest 
in the inanimate earth. His first, but not His most 
important reason, for instituting the Sabbatic year, 
was to give a “Sabbath of rest unto the land”; that 
also was one of His reasons for the year of Jubilee, 
“Ve shall not sow, neither reap that which groweth of 
itself, in it, nor gather the grapes 1n it of thy vine un- 
dressed” (vss. 4,5). 

In the study of this appointment I have been im- 
pressed, as never before, with the fact that God 
takes pleasure in fruitful fields, and must be cor- 
respondinely pained by the sight of worn and use- 
less acres. In the hilly country of the South and 
Fast it is not unusual to see acres which have been 
cultivated by men without rest, and without any at- 


AND THE EVANGELIST 83 


tempt to enrich the soil, until the very greed of gain 
has utterly destroyed the ground, and there is ex- 
posed to a burning sun a fruitless subsoil. Every 
such a field is a scar on the face of God’s earth, and 
I believe, also, is an offence to Him who carpets the 
earth with grass, adorns it with trees, and exquisite- 
ly beautifies it with flowers. 

I heard a while ago of a farmer in Albemarle 
County, Virginia, who had discovered the fact that 
the worn-out fields would produce violets in pro- 
fusion, and had bought broad acres of them for a 
song, and sowed them thickly with violet seeds, and 
was reaping for himself a fortune, while clothing 
the earth with beauty and filling the air with fra- 
grance. Such an act would meet the Divine favor! 
This rest for the land every seventh year, with two 
years of respite every half century, was God’s pro- 
vision against the greed which impoverishes the 
very earth and mars the features of its winsome 
face. 

It provided for the release of prisoners and the 
oppressed. In the fiftieth year they proclaimed lber- 
ty throughout all the land unto the inhabitants 
thereof. That year the bond servants were set free; 
that year provided the advantages of the bank- 
ruptcy law, for all those who were hopelessly in 
debt; that year swung wide prison doors and the 
incarcerated walked out. 

Who, then, can imagine what it meant? What 
homecomings and happiness when the long-exiled 
one returned, when the captive was released, and all 
debts were discharged? I talked a while ago with a 
woman whose son was in prison. Her heart was set 
upon him; she mourned his condition as only a 


84 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


mother can. But when I asked her how long be- 
fore he would be free, a smile struck through the 
tears, and the sad face brightened as she replied, “It 
is only a year. And my attorney leads me to hope 
that on account of good behavior, six months will 
let him see the end of it.” How the mothers in Is- 
rael must have hailed with joy this year of Jubilee 
when their imprisoned sons were set free, and every 
bond-servant was given his liberty! 

And who can tell what it means to have debts 
discharged? The poor fear debt as few other calam- 
ities, and with good occasion. The creditor may 
lay claim to but a few dollars and yet if one can- 
not furnish it, he can make his very life a burden— 
the days a dread, and the nights a delirium. Je- 
hovah, our God, who is not indifferent to any form 
of human suffering, was familiar with all these sad 
facts, and by His year of Jubilee, interposed for 
prisoner and oppressed. When John Howard dis- 
covered that English prisons were full of people 
who had been put in because they owed $1.00, $2.00, 
$3.00, and for years had languished behind prison 
bars, charged with delinquency in paying such small 
sums, he determined, by the grace of God, to set 
such men at liberty. Where he could, he paid their 
debts ; and for those whose debts were too large for 
him to provide, he set in motion new legislation 
which caused their liberty. And the reason John 
Howard is honored today wherever Christian men 
and women congregate, is because his sympathy and 
suggestion was in perfect line with God’s provision 
in the Sabbatic year and the year of Jubilee. 

It looked also to the restoration of families and 
fortunes. One of the hardships most difficult to bear 


AND THE EVANGELIST 85 


is the loss of an estate; and that is made double op- 
pression when the estate is associated with the 
precious memories of an honored house in history. 
As things are at present constituted, any com- 
mercial shark can take advantage of a widow, and 
by technicalities, wrest from her her riches, pauperize 
her, and forever despoil her children of an estate 
earned by the sweat of a father’s brow. But it was 
not so when God’s legislation was regarded by men. 
The year of Jubilee would bring such an one to jus- 
tice and take from his hands that which he had 
criminally accumulated, and turn it back again to 
those who receive it with all its sacred memories 
and enhanced values. And, in all this, there was no 
injustice to the man who came honestly into pos- 
session of one’s estate, for he knew perfectly that it 
was a temporary lease, and only paid for it accord- 
ingly. 

After all our statesmen have said and thought 
upon the subject of legislation, are we not just as 
far from the highest wisdom as we are removed 
from this Divine legislation? Would not the world 
be deluged with a new joy if this old law were again 
revived, and by its provision men began to live? 
How many families would be rebuilt! How many 
lost fortunes restored! How many homes ring with 
merriment like to that of Heaven! Raymond, in his 
“Life of Lincoln”, tells how one day Schuyler Col- 
fax came to the great President to plead for a boy 
who had been condemned and sentenced to be shot. 
Wearied and worn, the President answered, “Some 
of our Generals complain that I impair the dis- 
cipline and induce subordination in the army by my 
pardons and respites, but it makes me rested after a 


86 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


hard day’s work, if I can find some excuse for sav- 
ing a man’s life, and I go to bed happy as I think 
how joyous the signing of my name will make him 
and his family and his friends.” 

Beloved, I believe one secret of the eternal 
equanimity of God, one reason why He can look 
upon all the sorrows that beset men and yet remain 
forever felicitous Himself, is found in the fact that 
He knows that He has never laid His finger to a 
document and sent it into the world for the legisla- 
tion of human affairs; never spoken a word by the 
mouth of His Prophets, or uttered a sentence 
through the lips and the pen of His Apostles, but 
it has been suited to increasing human happiness in 
proportion as men have received and acted upon it. 
The Year of Jubilee was only one of His many in- 
stitutions meant for the restoration of family and 
fortune. 


It impressed the exercise of justice and the spirit 
of generosity. 


“In the year of this jubilee ye shall return every man 
unto his possession. And if thou sell ought unto thy neigh- 
bour, or buyest ought of thy neighbour’s hand, ye shall not 
oppress one another. * * The sabbath of the land shall be 
meat for you; for thee, and for thy servant, and for thy 
maid, and for thy hired servant, and for thy stranger that 
sojourneth with thee’ (vss. 13, 14,6). 


Who can tell what it would mean to have justice 
in the land? What would it mean if men ceased 
from oppressing one another? Who could tell what 
it would mean to have one-seventh of all our estates 
opened wide to the use of the world, so that the 
stranger might feed thereon? Such is God’s de- 
mand for justice that He pronounces woe upon them 


AND THE EVANGELIST 87 


that “join house to house, that lay field to field, that 
they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth”. 
He knows the oppression that too often attends the 
accumulation of property. 


And such is God’s appeal for generosity that 
every single type in the Old Testament teaches us 
as Clearly as Paul ever penned it, “Every one of you, 
on the first day of the week, lay by him in store as 
God has prospered him”; or as John, when by in- 
spiration, he condemns the man who “seeth his 
brother have need but shuts up his bowels of com- 
passion from him”. 


Bancroft in his “History of the United States” 
tells us something of the behavior of our Puritan fa- 
thers when in Plymouth colony they discovered 
that the arrival of new emigrants made such a draft 
upon their provisions that there was not sufficient 
to meet the hunger; yet: they shared, and shared, 
until Winslow tells us, “I have seen men stagger by 
reason of suffering for want of food.” Who won- 
ders that such men are universally revered! Who 
wonders that their true descendants have been God’s 
choicest people! What better type of Satan do you 
find than the wretched miser; and what man more 
often reminds you of his God than the great soul 
whose generosity is felt in every time of need? 


And yet, one cannot study this year of Jubilee and 
remember the Sabbatic years which precede it, and 
recall the tithes and offerings which God had com- 
manded, without fearing lest the Church of modern 
times has fallen far below Israel in their gifts in the 
name of Jehovah. 


88 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


TYPES AND SYMBOLS 


In conclusion I want to say some things concern- 
ing the types and symbols of the Sabbatic year, and 
the year of Jubilee. The man who attempts to in- 
terpret Leviticus without reference to types, sym- 
bols, and prophecies will prove himself a poor 
teacher of this mighty volume. Take the types and 
symbols out of Leviticus and you would practically 
destroy its value, and remove the very occasion of 
its existence. But what of the types, symbols, and 
prophecies of these sacred seasons—the Sabbatic 
year, and the year of Jubilee? 

Surely the work of the Son of God is here sym- 
bolized. In the Sabbatic year liberty was pro- 
claimed, men were released from debt, and lost 
fortunes were restored. How all that suggests what 
Jesus came to do! Do we not remember how, when 
He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought 
up, 

“He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and 
stood up for to read. And there was delivered unto Him 
the Book of the Prophet Esatas. And when He had opened 
the Book, He found the place where it was written, The 
Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He hath anointed 
Me to preach the Gospel to the poor; He hath sent Me 
to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the 
captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at 
liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year 
of the Lord. And He closed the Book, and He gave tt 
again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all 
them that were in the synagogue were fastened on Him. 
And He began to say unto them, This day is this Scripture 
fulfilled in your ears’ (Luke 4:16-21)? 

It was only when Christ came that there was 
provision for the release of all debts, the freedom 
of all prisoners, the liberty of all slaves, for the 
great Jubilee is not that of Leviticus in the Old 


AND THE EVANGELIST 89 


Testament, but the “acceptable year of the Lord” 
in the New Testament. And so far as discharge of 
debts, opening of prisons, and relief for the op- 
pressed, that is all in the work of Jesus. “He hath 
borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. * * He 
was wounded for our transgressions, He was 
bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our 
peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are 
healed”. I believe the present joy of the redeemed 
is only an earnest of that which is to come. The 
atoning work of Jesus is not finished when the soul 
is saved; it is only commenced. The day will come 
when the full jubilee will be ushered in by the sound 
of His voice, and when those who have been op- 
pressed by disease, and those who have been long 
held captive by death and the grave, shall be given 
their liberty, for has not the Apostle written, 

“Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, 
but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling 
of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, 
and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be 
changed. Lor this corruptible must put on incorruption, 
and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this 
corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mor- 
tal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought 
to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed 
up im victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, 
where is thy victory?” (I Cor. 15:51-55). 

“For we know that the whole creation groaneth and 
travatleth in pain together until now. And not only they, 
but ourselves also, which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, 
even we ourselves, groan within ourselves, waiting for 
our adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body” (Rom. 
ae ath, y.), 

Dr. Seiss, speaking of this consummation says, 
“When the trump of jubilee shall sound, these 
groanings shall cease, and these fetters all dissolve. 
Rocky vaults and sepulchers, sealed for ages, shall 


90 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


then suddenly burst open, and the doors of death 
fall down from their rusty hinges, and broad day- 
light break into the darkest tombs, and all God’s 
buried saints shake off their damp and mouldy pris- 
on garb to bid farewell forever to the dingy cells 
that now clasp their holy forms. ‘The expecting 
patriarchs, from their ancient tombs, hear the thrill- 
ing call and come; and holy martyrs, whose sacred 
dust the winds and waters scattered o’er the earth; 
and slaughtered saints, whose bones lie scattered on 
the Alpine mountains cold; and poorhouse paupers, 
sleeping in Christ, in potter’s fields; and faithful 
missionaries whose hearts the savages have eaten; 
and sea-lost loved ones whom shipwreck left to perish 
on the barren rocks, or melt in the still depths of the 
unfathomed sea—all, all, all, shall then find their 
sorry fate reversed, and the power of the oppressor 
gone forever.” Captivity will be at an end; debts 
will no longer distress ; labor and oppression will be 
things of the past when, by the work of the Son of 
God, we stand complete at last—body, soul, and 
spirit. In that day the jubilee of the ages begins! 

Here also the return of the Jews to Palestine is 
prophesied. “The land shall not be sold for ever, for 
the land 1s Mine.” And this land which is His, is prom- 
ised to this people “for an everlasting possession”. 
Hitherto they have occupied but a part of it, and 
that only temporarily. So, on the authority of 
God’s Word, they must come again into its posses- 
sion, and occupy it to its utmost borders. I know 
it may seem to some fanciful to say so, but I should 
believe it e’en were there no such wonderful indica- 
tions in the present trend of the times. I should be- 
lieve it even if this little spot of earth had not re- 


AND THE EVANGELIST 91 


mained a bone of contention among the nations. I 
should believe it if there were no Zionist movement 
on foot. I should believe it even if the Jews them- 
selves repudiated the idea, because I believe that 
not one jot of all God’s words shall fail. In the 
seventy years of their captivity in Babylon there 
was no other indication of their return to Palestine 
than that found in God’s promise; and yet, when 
He had cured them forever of their idolatry, He 
speedily put it into the heart of kings to co-operate 
with Him to this end. And He who did that in the 
ancient day will be abundantly able to make good 
His promise of peace like a river to Jerusalem, and 
the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing stream. For 
the Lord of Hosts has said, 


“Tt shall yet come to pass, that there shall come people, 
and the inhabitants of many cities: And the inhabitants of 
one city shall go to another, saying, Let us go speedily to 
pray before the Lord, and to seek the Lord of hosts: I 
will go also. Yea, many people and strong nations shall 
come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem, and to pray 
before the Lord. Thus saith the Lord of Hosts; In 
those days it shall come to pass, that ten men shall take 
hold out of ali languages of the nations, even shall take 
hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will 
go with you: for we have heard that God is with you” 
(Zech. §:20-23). 

It follows, therefore, that we find here also the 
type of the Millennial times. The year of Jubilee 
began just as the day of atonement was finished. It 
was ushered in with the sound of the trumpet; it 
was characterized by freedom for all Israelites, be- 
stowment of lost estates, rehabilitation of broken 
houses, the utter cancellation of all debts, and the 
gathering unto feasts which were pure in their ap- 
pointments and provided for the whole population. 
That year the very land brought forth without the 


92 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


sweat from any man’s brow, or the careful planning 
of any man’s mind. What a picture this of the Mil- 
lennial Age when men shall be able to live in the 
presence of the Son of God; when prisons will be 
put away forever; when slavery will be obsolete; 
when the very benediction of God upon the inani- 
mate earth shall cause “the fir tree to come up in- 
stead of the thorn”, and “instead of the briar will] 
come up the myrtle tree” ; when, as the great Proph- 
et puts it, “Ye shall go out with joy, and be led 
forth with peace. The mountains and the hills shall 
break forth before you into singing and all the trees 
of the field shall clap their hands”. That is the 
period to begin when, “The Lord Himself shall de- 
scend from Heaven with a shout, and with the voice 
of the archangel, and with the trump of God, and the 
dead in Christ shall rise”. That is the age in which 
He shall sit upon the throne of thrones, and rule 
“from sea to sea, and from the rivers unto the ends 
of the earth”. That is the “Utopia” of which 
Thomas Moore wrote, without knowing its true 
name, or understanding who was to usher it in. 
That is the Golden Age of which all agitators speak, 
and for which all social and political reformers ig- 
norantly work in unbelief. That is the age to which 
the Gospel Dispensation leads, and in which all 
saints shall share a part. Truly, as A. J. F. Beh- 
rends has remarked, “Everything in the Christian 
confession is keyed to immortality and eternal bless- 
edness. There shall come an end to weakness and 
weariness, an end to pain and tears; but the songs 
of our pilgrimage shall swell into the unending 
sound of victory and joy.” Sometime ago I was talk- 
ing with one about a friend who had been mightily 


AND THE EVANGELIST 93 


used of God in Bible teaching, but who is now sad- 
ly afflicted by mental and physical collapse. My 
companion said, “I have here a poem from his pen.” 
The words are adapted to end this discourse: 


“They come! They come! 

Those endless years at home! 
Those joys unending, selfless, deep ; 
Within the shelter all the sheep 
Eternal holiday to keep; 

No more to fear, no more to roam, 

Those endless years at home— 
They come! They come! 


“He lives! He lives! 
Who life eternal gives; 
Who calleth all His sheep by name, 
Who healeth all the blind and lame, 
Who loveth rich and poor the same. 
Whoever Christ by faith receives, 
Christ life eternal gives— 
He lives! He lives! 


“Make haste! Make haste! 
The sun is sinking fast! 
The door into the fold must close 
With night—and left without the foes, 
And left without alike are those 
Who lingered listless or unto the last— 
Neglecting still—till light and grace are past, 
O haste! O haste!” 





NUMBERS 


INTRODUCTION 

The book of Numbers takes its name from the 
pollings of the people recorded in chapters 1 and 26. 

The period covered by the Book seems to be a 
bit more than thirty-eight years, or from “the first 
day of the second month of the second year”, when 
the law-giving ended, to “the first day of the 5th 
month of the fortieth year”. 

We find what seems to us a natural break in the 
Book at the end of chapter 19, and consequently 
propose to discuss it under the two chapters: 
MARCHING AND MURMURING, chapters 1-19; 
KADESH TO CANAAN, chapters 20-36. The three 
texts that we elect to treat herein, are chosen mere- 
ly because in the work of the pastorate there arose 
occasions when they seemed to meet certain exi- 
gencies of church life. There are hundreds of other 
texts in Numbers of equal, perhaps of even greater, 
value, but we only present these as suggestive sam- 
ples of textual study and practical application. 


95 





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MARCHING AND MURMURING 
Numbers, Chapters 1-19. 

HE Book of Leviticus is hard to outline and to 

interpret. It is lengthy, and introduces so much 
of detail of law and ceremony that its analysis is 
accomplished with difficulty. And yet Leviticus 
took but thirty days to declare and put its every 
precept into actual practice. In that respect the 
Book of Numbers quite contrasts its predecessor. 
It covers a period of not less than thirty-eight years, 
and the plan of the volume is simple. Four key- 
words compass the nineteen chapters proposed for 
this morning’s study. They are words necessitated 
by the wilderness experience. Leviticus sets up a 
sanctuary and a form of service; but in Numbers, 
“we read of men of war, of armies, of standards, of 
camps, and trumpets sounding aloud”. Through all 
of this, these key-words keep their way, and the 
mere mention of them will aid us in an orderly study 
of the first half of the volume; while we will not be 
able to dispense with them when we come to the 
analysis and study of the latter half. I refer to the 
terms mustering, marching, murmuring, and mercy. 


MUSTERING 


The first nine chapters of Numbers have to do al- 
most entirely with the mustering. Chapters one and 
two are given to arranging the regiment, as we saw 
in our former study: 

“And the Lord spake unto Moses in the wilderness of 

Sinai, in the tabernacle of the congregation, on the first 


day of the second month, in the second year after they 
were come out of the land of Egypt, saying, 


99 


100 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


“Take ye the sum of all the congregation of the Children 
of Israel, after their families, by the house of their fa- 
thers, with the number of their names, every male by 
their polls; 

“From twenty years old and upward, all that are able to 
go forth to war in Israel: thou and Aaron shall number 
them by their armies. 

“And with you there shall be a man of every tribe; 
every one head of the house of his fathers. * * 

“As the Lord commanded Moses, so he numbered 
them in the wilderness of Sinai, * * 

“Every male from twenty years old and upward, all 
that were able to go forth to war. * * 

“And the Lord spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, say- 
ing, Every man of the Children of Israel shall pitch by his 
own standard” (Numbers I:1-4,19,20; 2:1-2). 

After all the centuries and even the millenniums 
that have come in between the day of Numbers and 
our day, wherein have men improved upon God’s 
plan of mustering armies and arranging regiments? 
True, we permit our boys to enter the service — 
younger than twenty, but we make a mistake, as 
many a war-wrecked youth has illustrated. True, 
we make up our regiments of men who are strangers 
to each other, and in whose veins no kindred blood 
is flowing. But such an aggregation will never 
represent the strength, nor exhibit the courage that 
the tribal regiment evinces in fight. The almost 
successful rebellion of our Southern States demon- 
strated this. Our “standard” speaks of the nation, 
and appeals to the patriotic in men. Their “stand- 
ard” represented the family and addressed itself to 
domestic pride and passion. It is well to remember, 
however, that the primary purpose of these Old 
Testament symbols is the impression of spiritual 
truths. And the lesson in this arranging of regi- 
ments is the one of being able to declare our spirit- 
ual genealogy, and our religious standard. 


AND THE EVANGELIST 101 


Every Israelite, when he was polled, was put in 
position to declare his paternity and point unmis- 
takably to his standard; and no Christians should 
be satisfied until they can say with John, “Now are 
we the sons of God”, because we have discovered that 
“the Spirit Himself beareth witness with our spirit that 
we are the sons of God’. And no standard should 
ever be accepted as sufficient other than that which 
has been set up for us in the Word. Long ago God 
said, “Behold I will lift up Mine hand to the Gentiles, 
and set up My standard to the people’, and in Christ 
Jesus He has accomplished that; and every one of 
us ought to be able to say with C. H. M., “Our 
theology is the Bible; our church organization is the 
one Body, formed by the presence of the Holy 
Ghost, and united to the living and exalted Head in 
the Heavens.” To contend for anything less than 
this is entirely below the mark of a true spiritual 
warrior. 

Chapters three and four contain the appointment 
of the Priests. When Moses numbered the people, 
“the Levites after the tribe of thew fathers were not 
numbered” (1:47). God had for them a particular 
place in the army, and a peculiar part to take in this 
onward march. Their place was roundabout the 
tabernacle, at the center of the host, and their office 
was the charge of all the vessels thereof, and over 
all the things that belonged to it. They were to bear 
the tabernacle, to minister in the tabernacle, to en- 
camp roundabout it; “to take it down” when they 
were ready to set forth; and when the army halted 
in a new place, they were “to set it up” (chap. AE 
In one sense they were not soldiers; in another they 
were the very captains and leaders of Jehovah's 


102 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


army. ‘Their men from twenty to fifty were not 
armed and made ready for the shedding of blood, 
but they were set in charge of that symbol of Je- 
hovah’s presence without which Israel’s overthrow 
would have been instantaneous, and Israel’s defeat 
effectual. The world’s most holy men have always 
been, will always remain, its best warriors. The 
Sunday School teachers of the land fight the battles 
that make for peace more effectually than the na- 
tion’s constabulary ; while the ministers of the Gos- 
pel, together with all their confederates—conscien- 
tious laymen—put more things to rights and keep 
the peace better than the police force of all towns 
and cities. Every believer is “a priest unto God”. 
We should be profoundly impressed with the posi- 
tion we occupy in the great army which is fighting 
for a better civilization, and with the responsibility 
that rests upon us in the bringing in of a reign of 
righteousness. 

Chapters five to nine, we have said, relate them- 
selves to the establishment of army regulations. 
They impose purity of life upon every member who 
remains in the camp; they require restitution of any 
property falsely appropriated; they insist upon the 
strictest integrity of the home-life, and they declare 
the vows, offerings, and ceremonies suited to im- 
press the necessity of the keeping of all these com- 
mands. In this there are two suggestions for the 
present time, namely, the place that discipline has 
in a well-organized army and the prominence it 
ought to be given in the true Church of God. That 
modern custom of making a hero of every man who 
smells the smoke of battle, and the complimentary 
one of excoriating every moral teacher who insists 


AND THE EVANGELIST 103 


that even men of war are amenable to the civilities 
of life and ought to be compelled to regard them, 
has filled the ranks of too many standing armies 
with immoral men and swung public opinion too 
far into line with that servile press which indulges 
the habit of condoning, yea, even of commending, 
an army code that makes for criminal culture. 

Sometime ago I went, in company with a veteran 
of ’61 to ’66, to hold a little service at the grave of 
two of his comrades. On our way we met another 
veteran of that bloody war, and as we looked into 
his bloated face, and listened to his drunken words, 
this clean, sober, Christian ex-soldier uttered some 
things about the necessity of better discipline in the 
army that were worthy of repetition, and ought to 
be heard by those officials who have it in their pow- 
er to aid the young men of our present army to keep 
the commandments of God; but who too often lead 
them by example and precept to an utter repudia- 
tion of the same. 

But the Church of God is Jehovah’s army, and if 
we expect civilities from the unregenerate, we have 
a right to demand righteousness of the professedly 
redeemed. Much as discipline did for the purity and 
power of Israel, if rightly employed, it would ac- 
complish even more for the purity and power of the 
present organized body of believers. Baron Stowe, 
a long time Boston’s model pastor, in his “Mem- 
oirs” says, touching the importance of strict dis- 
cipline, “A church cannot prosper that connives at 
sin in its members; and that charity which shrinks 
from plain, faithful dealing with offenders, is false 
charity, and deeply injurious. A straightforward 
course in discipline, in accordance with the rules 


104 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


laid down by the Saviour, is the only one that will 
insure His approbation.” Any serious student of 
the Scriptures must be often and profoundly im- 
pressed with the parallelisms, and even perfect 
agreements, of the Old Testament teachings with 
those of the New. Touching discipline, the Lord 
said unto Joshua, 


“Isyael hath sinned, and they have also transgressed 
My covenant, which I commanded them: for they have 
even taken of the accursed thing, and have also stolen, 
and dissembled also, and they have put it even among their 
own stuff. 

“Therefore the Children of Israel could not stand be- 
fore their enemies, but turned their backs before their ene- 
mies, because they were accursed: neither will I be with 
you any more, except ye destroy the accursed thing from 
among you” (Josh, 7:11, 12). 


When Paul found in the Corinthian Church a 
similar condition of transgression, he wrote, 


“But now I have written unto you not to keep company, 
if any man that is called a formcator, or covetous, or an 
idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; 
with such an one no not to eat. * * Therefore put away 
from among yourselves that wicked person” (I Cor. §:II, 


MARCH 


The tenth chapter and thirty-third verse sets our 
organized army into motion. “And they departed 
from the mount of the Lord, three days’ journey. 
Touching this march there are three things sug- 
gested by the Scripture, each of which is of the ut- 
most importance. 


First of all it was begun at God’s signal. 


“And it came to pass on the twentieth day of the sec- 
ond month, in the second year, that the cloud was taken 
up from off the tabernacle of the testimony. 

“And the Children of Israel took their journeys out of 
the wilderness of Sinat; and the cloud rested in the wal- 
derness of Paran. 


AND THE EVANGELIST 105 


“And they first took their journey according to the 
commandment of the Lord, by the hand of Moses” (10: 
II-13). 

Going back to the beginning of this tenth chapter 
you will find that the priests were to assemble the 
armies with the silver trumpets. A single blast 
called together the princes—heads of the thousands 
of Israel. When they blew an alarm, the camps that 
lay on the East went forward. A second alarm sum- 
moned the camps from the South, and an additional 
blast brought the congregation together. The same 
God at whose signal Israel was to march, speaks in 
trumpet tones by His Spirit, and through the Word, 
to the present Church militant. When whole con- 
gregations go sadly wrong, much of the trouble will 
be found with the men whose business it is to use 
the silver trumpet, and thereby voice the mind of 
God. Too many preachers have been snubbed into 
silence or cowed to uncertain sounds. The silver 
trumpets through which they ought to call the peo- 
ple to battle have been plugged up with gold pieces, 
and in all too many instances they are afraid to blow 
an alarm, calling to the camps that lie on the East, 
lest when they sound the second, those that lie on 
the South should refuse to respond. 


Joseph Parker suggests that when ministers be- 
come the trumpeters of society again, there will be 
a mighty awakening in the whole nation. In Italy 
they have a saying to this effect, “There has never 
been a revolution in Europe without a Monk at the 
bottom of it.” And when the ministers of the Gos- 
pel of Jesus Christ faithfully fill up their offices, 
there will never be a division of God’s army, march- 
ing Canaanward, without a preacher at the head of 


106 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


it; and he will not be a man who has accommodated 
himself to the cry of the times in which we live— 
“Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us 
smooth things, prophesy deceits”, but rather one who 
will sound the alarm of Divine command, and whose 
word will be to the people, God’s signal. Every ele- 
ment of success enters into that assurance which 
comes from a conviction that one is marching ac- 
cording to the Divine command. The reason why 
public opinion, almost insuperable obstacles, and 
even royal counsellors, could not turn Joan of Arc 
from her purpose, existed in the fact that she kept 
hearing a voice saying, “Daughter of God, go on, 
go on!” And if we will listen, there is a voice be- 
hind us saying, “This is the way, walk ye in it”. 


In this march God’s leadership was sought. 


“And it came to pass, when the ark set forward, that 
Moses said, Rise up, Lord, and let thine enemies be Scat- 
tered; and let them that hate thee flee before thee. 

“And when it rested he said, Return, O Lord, unto the 
many thousands of Israel” (10:33). 


There is a simplicity and a sincerity in that prayer 
which is truly refreshing. There are plenty of men 
who consult their circumstances; who take into ac- 
count all the factors that can affect the march of 
life, and who try to keep as their constant guide a 
well-balanced intellect; but Moses preferred God. 
He esteemed His presence above all favorable con- 
ditions, and above the highest human judgment. 
And the man who rises up in the morning, offering 
his prayer to God to be guided for that day, and 
who, when he lies down at night, prays again, “Fe- 
turn, O Lord, unto me, and watch over my slumber”, 


AND THE EVANGELIST 107 


is the man who has no occasion to fear because even 
the fiercest foe will fall before him. 

Lewis Albert Banks says that about the year 1600 
a man by the name of Heddinger was chaplain to 
the Duke of Wartenberg. The Duke was a way- 
ward, wicked man. Heddinger was one of these 
genuine, faithful souls like John the Baptist who 
would stand for the right and God. He rebuked the 
Duke for his great sins. This terribly enraged his 
Honor, and he sent for the brave chaplain thinking 
to punish him. Heddinger came from his closet of 
prayer with his face beaming. The Duke, seeing the 
shine in every feature, realized that he was enjoying 
the actual presence of the Lord, and after putting to 
him the question, “Why did you not come alone?” 
sent him away unharmed. Ah, beloved, whether we 
be on the march or at rest; whether we be fighting 
the battles of life or enjoying its victories; whether 
we be proclaiming the truth or are on trial for hav- 
ing taught it, we have no business being alone, for 
we seek the Divine presence. The Lord will lead us 
in the march and lift over us His banner when we 
lie down to rest. 

Nor can one follow this march without being im- 
pressed with the fact that God was guiding His 
people Canaanward. By consulting a good map 
you will see that the line from Sinai to Kadesh- 
Barnea was as direct as the lay of the land made 
possible. God never takes men by circuitous routes. 
These come in consequence of leaving the straight 
and narrow way for the more attractive but uncer- 
tain one of by-path meadow. Had they remained 
faithful to Divine leadership, forty days would have 
brought the whole company into Canaan. But when, 


108 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


through the discouragement of false reporters, they 
turned southward, putting their backs to God, they 
plunged into the wilderness for a wandering of forty 
years, and even worse, to perish there without ever 
seeing the Land of Promise. What a lesson here for 
us! There is a sense in which every man determines 
his own destiny. It is within our power to trust to 
Divine leadership and enjoy it, and it is equally 
within our power to mistrust it, and lose it. One 
commenting upon this says, “Israel declared that 
God had brought them into the wilderness to die 
there; and He took them at their word. Joshua and 
Caleb declared that He was able to bring them into 
the land, and He took them at their word”. “Ac- 
cording to your fatth be it unto you”. 


MURMURING 


The eleventh chapter sounds for us a sad note. 
There the people fall to petty complaints and criti- 
cisms. “And when the people complained”. There are 
those who can complain without occasion. Criticism 
is the cheapest of intellectual commodities. And yet 
the critic always has a reason for his complaint, and 
however he may seek to hide the real cause, God is 
an expert in uncovering it. Here He lays it to the 
“mixed multitude” that was among them—“‘they fell 
a lusting”. That “mixed multitude” (or “great mix- 
ture” is the word in the original) consisted of 
Egyptians and others who had come out of Egypt 
with Israel, and whose Egyptian tastes were not be- 
ing satisfied by enforced marches, holy services and 
manna from on High. It is a good thing to get Is- 
rael out of Egypt, to get the Church of God out of 
the world; but it is an essential thing also to get 


AND THE EVANGELIST 109 


Egypt out of Israel, the unregenerate out of the 
Church of God, for if you do not they will “fall a lust- 
ing”, and the first complaint they will make is touch- 
ing the food divinely provided for them. The Gos- 
pel of Jesus Christ—God’s provided manna—never 
did satisfy an unregenerate man, and it never will. 
What he wants is “the cucumbers, and the melons, 
and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick”. Yes, 
even “the garlick” of the world; and when you set 
before him manna, he insists that his “soul is dried 
away’. 

I went to talk with a mother about her little 
daughter’s uniting with the church. She told me 
that she was opposed to it; and when I asked her 
why, she boldly replied that she united with the 
church herself when she was young, and thereby 
denied herself all “the pieasures of the world”. She 
had never ceased to regret it, and she proposed to 
save her girl from a similar experience. “A lusting 
for the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, 
and the onions, and the garlick!” If such is one’s 
feeling, just as well go back to the world! It 
does not make an Egyptian an Israelite to go over 
into that camp, and it does not make an unre- 
generate man a Christian because you write his 
name on the church book. 

This spirit of criticism spread to the officials and 
leaders. “And Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses 
because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had mar- 
ried’. Their complaint was slightly different from 
that of the mixed multitude, but directed against 
the same man. 

From the complaint of these leading officials the 
trouble spread, and when the ten spies rendered 


110 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


their report of the land which God had promised, 
the whole congrégation broke into revolt. That was 
the opportunity that Korah and Dathan and Abiram 
and On took advantage of. 

“And they rose up before Moses, with certain of the 
Children of Isracl, two hundred and fifty princes of the 
assembly, famous in the congregation, men of renown. 

“And they gathered themselves together against Moses 
and against Aaron, and said unto them, Ye take too much 
upon you, seeing all the congregation are holy, every one 
of them, and the Lord is among them; wherefore then lift 
ye up yourselves above the congregation of the Lord’? 
{d0225°3); 

Here is the new complaint of the critics! Moses 
is domineering ; his administration is that of a “one- 
man power’. He has not given sufficient attention 
to “the princes of the assembly”, and to “the chief 
members” of the congregation. 

This is no ancient story. From that hour until this, 
the Church of God, whether in the form of Israel or 
that of the body of baptized believers, has ex- 
perienced the same rebellion with the same reasons 
assigned. In Paul’s day the Church at Corinth had 
to be counselled by the great Apostle and the mem- 
bers thereof reminded that they were of one body. 
The feet are enjoined not to complain of the hands, 
and the ear not to criticise the eye, and the eye not 
to envy the hand, nor yet the head the feet, that 
there should be no schism in the body, since when 
one member suffers, all the members suffer with it, 
and when one member is honored all the members 
should rejoice with it. In our own day the chief 
men have sometimes set aside the servant of God. 
Dr. Jonathan Edwards, once a man of the highest 
education and personal culture, honored by the 
members of his profession for his spirituality, and 


AND THE EVANGELIST 111 


for the success that had attended his ministry, was 
set aside because he interfered with the Egyptian 
desires of the children of certain “chief men” of his 
congregation. Years ago, in New York, America’s 
most famous pastor and preacher, after passing 
through a series of sicknesses and bereavements in 
his family, came to the thirtieth anniversary of his 
pastorate to find himself retired from office by a few 
of “the officials” of the church who were “influen- 
tial”. His reinstatement by the body at large came 
too late to save him from the collapse that attended 
this severe experience. A New York correspondent, 
writing of this, said, “Such action makes every 
pastor in New York City feel sick at heart.” 
Attend to the way Moses met this! If the min- 
isters of the present time learned his way, their 
course would be a more courageous one and their 
burdens better borne. “Then Moses and Aaron fell 
on their faces before all the assembly of the congre- 
gation of the Children of Israel” (14:5). ‘That is the 
way he met the first rebellion. When the rebellion 
of Korah came, it is written, “And when Moses heard 
it, he fell upon his face. And he spake unto Korah 
and unto all his company, saying, Even to morrow the 
Lord will show who are His’ (16:4, 5). Wemay sug- 
gest here, prayer to God, the best possible reply to 
complaints and criticisms. If one has been guilty of 
that charged against him, such prayer will bring him 
to a knowledge of his guilt and give him an op- 
portunity to correct it; and if he has not been guilty, 
such prayer will cause God to lift him up and 
establish his going, and put into his mouth a song. 
Constantine the Great was one day looking at 
some statues of famed persons, and noting that they 


112 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


were all in standing position, he said, “When mine 
is made I’d like it in kneeling posture, for it is by 
going down before God I have risen to any emi- 
nence.” Moses has taught us how to conquer all 
complaint, and all criticism, and come off victorious 
by falling on our faces and waiting until God shows 
who are His. 
MERCY 


The conclusion of this study presents a precious 
thought; in the midst of judgment, mercy appears. 

At Moses’ intercession, God removes His hand. 
Every time there is a rebellion, and judgment is 
visited upon the people, Moses appears as interces- 
sor, and “when the people fell to lusting for the leeks, 
and the onions of Egypt, Moses cried unto God, 
Wherefore hast Thou afflicted Thy servant? and 
wherefore have I not found favour in Thy sight, that 
Thou layest the burden of ali this people upon me’? 
Their cries were the anguish of his soul! When 
Miriam and Aaron were in sedition against their 
brother, it was Moses who interceded, saying, “Heal 
her now, O God, I beseech Thee’. And when the whole 
congregation lifted up their voices of murmuring at 
the report of the spies, Moses was on his face again 
in such an intercessory prayer as you could scarce 
find on another page of sacred Scripture. He was 
ready to die himself, if they could not be delivered ; 
and when Korah and his company attempted his 
overthrow, he plead with Ged until the plague was 
stayed. Therein is an exampie for every true Chris- 
tian man. 


“Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give 
place unto wrath, for it 1s written, Vengeance ts Mine; I 
will repay, saith the Lord; 


AND THE EVANGELIST 113 


“Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he 
thirst, give him drink. * * 
“Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good”. 


This is what Christ said, 


“Love your enemies, bless them that curse you; do good 
to them that hate you, and pray for them which despite- 
fully use you and persecute you, that you may be the 
children of your Father which is in Heaven” (Matt. 5: 
44, 45). 

The richest symbol of God’s mercy is seen in this 
nineteenth chapter—the red heifer! “She was pre- 
eminently the type of God’s provision against the 
defilement of the wilderness experience. She pre- 
figured the death of Christ as the purification for 
sin” and contained the promise of God’s mercy to- 
ward all men, however dreadful their rebellion or 
deep their stains. Who can read this nineteenth 
chapter and remember how this offering of the red 
heifer covers the most grievous sin of man without 
seeing how great is God’s mercy, and how Divine 
is His example. Henry Van Dyke says, “When we 
see God forgiving all men who have sinned against 
Him, sparing them in his mercy, * * let us take the 
gracious lesson of forgiveness to our hearts. Why 
should we hate like Satan when we may forgive like 
God? Why should we cherish malice, envy, and all 
uncharitableness in our breasts? I know that some 
people use us despitefully and show themselves our 
enemies, but why should we fill our hearts with 
their bitterness and inflame our wounds with their 
poison? This world is too sweet and fair to darken 
it with the clouds of anger. This life is too short and 
precious to waste it in bearing that heaviest of all 
burdens, a grudge.” 


And you will see in this nineteenth chapter, also, 


114 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


a new emphasis laid upon the necessity of personal 
purity. The red heifer was provided for cleansing, 
and God imposed it upon the cleansed to keep them- 
selves unspotted from the world. That is the major 
part of true religion to this day, to keep one’sself 
unspotted from the world. This whole chapter is 
God’s attempt to so provide us with the blood of 
the slain, and surround us with the cleansing cere- 
monies, that we may be able to resist the floods of 
defilement that flow on every side. Realizing, as we 
must realize, the beauty and blessedness of a holy 
life, we can enter into a keen appreciation of that 
most beautiful beatitude, and sing with John Keble: 


“Blest are the pure in heart, 
For they shall see their God: 
The secret of the Lord is theirs; 
Their soul is Christ’s abode. 


“The Lord, who left the heavens, 
Our life and peace to bring, 

To dwell in lowliness with men, 
Their pattern and their King. 


“Still to the lowly soul 
He doth Himself impart, 

And for His dwelling and His throne 
Chooseth the pure in heart. 


“Lord, we Thy presence seek; 
May ours this blessing be; 

Oh, give the pure and lowly heart, 
A temple meet for Thee.” 


CHAPTER II. 


KADESH TO CANAAN 





KADESH TO CANAAN 
Numbers, Chapters 20-36. 


ie our study of the remaining chapters of this 
Book of Numbers, we commence with the Chil- 
dren of Israel at Kadesh and conclude with them on 
the borders of Canaan; hence our subject, “From 
Kadesh to Canaan”’. 

By a reference to your maps you will see that 
Kadesh—Barnea is only a little way removed from 
the promised land. Oné would imagine that when 
Israel had come so near to their divinely appointed 
inheritance, nothing short of death or a Divine com- 
mand would keep them from immediate occupation 
of their promised home and prospective possessions. 
If, instead of the murmuring incited by the report 
of the ten spies, they had turned mutinous, and with- 
out waiting for a command from Moses, had rushed, 
mob-like, over the land, claiming every piece upon 
which they set foot, and occupying every city whose 
gates they could force, the action would have 
seemed more natural than that which is recorded of 
them. 

It is reported of a company of crusaders that, 
coming near to the city of Jerusalem and behold- 
ing its hilltops, some fell upon their faces, others 
upon their knees, all began to pray, many to weep, 
until finally, at a signal from their leader, each man 
sprang to his feet and shouted three times, “Jeru- 
salem! Jerusalem! Jerusalem! City of the King! 
City of the King! City of the King!” and then 
breaking into a mob they rushed with all speed to 


see which one could first enter. 
E's 


118 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


It is little wonder that Israel’s abode in Kadesh 
should have been marked by Miriam’s death there. 
The marvel is that this people should have been so 
stupid that even the death of their leaders did not 
suggest to them the Divine displeasure with their 
wilderness wanderings. 

The remainder of this Book of Numbers is main- 
ly a report of hardship, sufferings and judgments, 
in consequence of turning their backs on Canaan at 
Kadesh. There are some four emphatic things in 
these sixteen chapters to which we call attention. 


THE CRISIS OF KADESH. 


Chapters 20-21. 


Kadesh was to Israel the crisis. At that point the 
question was up for settlement, “Shall we go for- 
ward or backward; shall we act upon the command 
of the brave, or upon the report of the cowardly; 
shall we compass the Land of Promise, or turn again 
to the desert; shall we conform to the Divine ap- 
pointments, or shall we consult the flesh and fears?” 

Upon the answer to these questions certain results 
depend. 

If they go forward, rest; if backward, restless- 
ness. It is hard to conceive of greater restlessness 
than that which followed upon their return wilder- 
nessward. That generation was like the dove that 
was sent from the ark, “finding no rest for the sole 
of their feet”. Today they may come upon a grate- 
ful shade, even to some well-watered oasis, and 
strike their tents and say, “Here we will remain.” 
But God would not have it so. Tomorrow the pillar 
of cloud will lift and they must pull up the last 
stake, “For they were not as yet come to the rest and 


AND THE EVANGELIST 119 


to the inheritance which the Lord their God had given 
them’ (Deut. 12:9). 

What a picture this, of the people who come in 
their experience to the point of conscious apprecia- 
tion of the Divine will, and stop there to debate 
whether they will do it or no! That is the crisis in 
Christian experience. To go forward then is to 
come into the peace of God that passeth knowledge ; 
to go backward is to fall upon that experience of 
restlessness which characterizes every unsubmis- 
sive, unsurrendered soul. Not a few of the nervous 
disorders that undermine the bodies and brains of 
men come as a direct consequence of unsurrendered 
spirits. No less an authority than the eminent Ger- 
man physician Dr. Billsinger, said, “A true religious 
condition is of inestimable value to patients suffer- 
ing from nervous disorders.” The sine qua non of 
physical and spiritual power is to be at peace with 
God. 

If they went forward, possession; if backward, 
poverty. If one would know what possessions were 
ahead of them, let him read that part of the report 
of the cowardly spies which refers to the lands and 
the fruits thereof. “We came unto the land whither 
thou sentest us, and surely it floweth with milk and 
honey’. This is the fruit of it (the branches with 
one cluster of grapes requiring two men to bear it, 
beside the pomegranates and the figs). If one would 
know what poverty is in the wilderness, turn to this 
expression, “There was no water for the congrega- 
tion”; and to this, “Jt is no place of seed, or of figs, or 
of vines, or of pomegranates” (Num. 20:5). Who is 
to blame? Is it the fault of that God whose finger 
pointed Canaanward and whose rain and sunshine 


120 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


had ripened for the people all manner of fruits? Is 
it the fault of Moses who would gladly have led 
them in, conquering and to conquer? Is it the fault 
of Joshua and Caleb who said, “Let us go up at once 
and possess tt, for we are well able to overcome it’? 
or, is it the fault of the people who deliberately 
chose wilderness life against Canaan inheritance? 
Men sometimes complain that their souls are unfed; 
that they are parched and thirsty. Who is to blame? 
Is it that God who hath opened a fountain in the 
House of David, and who hath prepared the fruits 
of the Spirit? Is it that minister who has called at- 
tention to them, reminding us that they are God’s 
provision in our behalf, included in His gracious 
promise to us? Is it the fault of that Christian who 
has gone into Canaan himself and tasted the fruits 
thereof and returned to his brethren to plead with 
them to come with him into the same unspeakable 
possessions and the same satisfactory experiences? 

Perhaps there are few classes of men in the world 
more ragged and poor than those called gypsies. 
They have no abiding place; theirs is a nomadic ex- 
istence, and in consequence they accumulate no 
riches and seldom enjoy even a single comfort. The 
utmost that they know is a momentary gratification 
of the flesh. Types they are of the roving spirits 
who never settle down upon a single promise of the 
Word to claim it as their own; men and women who 
have left Egypt, but who cannot be induced to en- 
ter Canaan; who have lost the leeks and the onions 
and stopped short of the grapes of Eshcol! Familiar 
they are with the struggle of the seventh chapter of 
Romans, but ignorant of the freedom and fruitful- 
ness of the eighth. One of the most pathetic par- 


AND THE EVANGELIST 121 


ables of the New Testament is that of the barren fig 
tree. What a disappointment to the gardener! 
What a cumberer of the ground! And when that 
parable is wrought out in the life of the man upon 
whom the Lord has bestowed much labor, and in 
whom are found none of the fruits of the Spirit, such 
as “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, good- 
ness, faith, meekness, temperance’, how his poverty 
must pain the great heart of God! 

To speak further of the great crisis of Kadesh we 
call attention to the fact that to go forward is suc- 
cess; to go backward is suffering. To have gone 
over into Canaan would have been to have seen the 
very giants go down before them; to turn again to 
the desert of Zin was to feel the serpent’s tooth. C. 
H. Macintosh says, “If the Lord’s people will not 
walk happily and contentedly with him, they must 
taste the power of the serpent.” There is an impres- 
sion abroad that Christians will come into judgment 
at the last day; but let it be remembered that that 
day contains for God’s people nothing than reward. 
Whatever of the serpent’s tooth these must feel is 
the lot of life in the flesh. But, while it is a fact that 
when Israel murmured, the serpent was the answer ; 
when Israel realized her sin and confessed, God’s 
grace was the reply. 

The next suggestion of importance in this study 
is the record ot 


BALAK AND BALAAM. 


Chapters 22-24. 
Dr. Joseph Parker calls attention to the fact that 
though these men were introduced into this narra- 
tive suddenly, they never go out of it again. Balak 


122 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


will appear at the end of this Old Testament when 
Micah says, “Oh my people, remember now what Balak 
consulted * * that ye may know the righteousness of 
the Lord” (6:5). And Balaam and Balak will be the 
subject of concern when that last Book of the Bible 
is being written, namely, the Apocalypse. The 
reason for all this is evident. The history these men 
made was not that of their day merely, but that of 
every day up to the end of this age. It is the 
potentates’ attempt to coerce the prophet. It is the 
world of the flesh against the Word of the Spirit. 
Think of the three things illustrated in this instance! 
First of all the potentate attempts to buy up the 
Prophet. In the 22nd chapter and the 7th and 8th 
verses we read, 
“And the elders of Moab, and the elders of Midian de- 
parted with the rewards of divination in their hand; and 
they came unto Balaam, and spake unto him the words of 


Balak. 
“And he said unto them, Lodge here this night, and I 


will bring you word again, as the Lord shall speak unto 

me; and the princes of Moab abode with Balaam”. 

In all of the time that has passed, the potentates 
of the world have not changed their tactics one whit. 
In very fact there never was a time when ministers 
were so tempted by money, to false prophecies, as 
now. ‘Truly has it been said that the Church of God 
has come into too close alliance with the economic 
system, and the minister is too often the subject of 
intimidation by men of means. To preach what God 
has said, is to part with “the reward of divination” 
and to forfeit any expectation of Balak’s silver and 
gold. 


AND THE EVANGELIST 123 


In the second instance Balak added men and prof- 
fered promotion to money! 

“And Balak sent yet again princes, more, and more 
honourable than they. 

“And they came to Balaam, and said to him, Thus saith 
Balak, the son of Zippor, Let nothing, I pray thee, hinder 
thee from coming unto me. 

“For I will promote thee unto very great honour, and I 
will do whatsoever thou sayest unto me: come therefore, 

I pray thee, curse me this people’ (Num. 22:15-17). 


That same opportunity of fellowship with nota- 
bles of honorable office, and of increased emolu- 


ments is open to the present-day preacher who will 
commend the world and curse the people of God. 


R. F. Horton says that he found in a fashionable 
English watering place a clergyman whose conduct 
was openly and notoriously out of harmony with 
the Gospel, but who fell back upon the articles of 
his church and encouraged his hearers to believe 
that the grace of the church was flowing through his 
unhallowed lips. And he reminds us that it is the 
degradation which is resulting in England from the 
revival of a debased ecclesiasticism, that this church 
is always crowded with people who were only too 
glad to find a doctrine which could reconcile a cer- 
tain religious profession with an unmodified worldli- 
ness. 


To his popularity was added the proud purse. 
What is that but a repeating of this ancient history, 
save that this heathen soothsayer had more con- 
science than some men who now profess themselves 
to be ministers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, for 
even 


“Balaam answered and said unto the servants of Balak, 
If Balak would give me his house full of silver and gold, I 


124 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


cannot go beyond the Word of the Lord my God, to do 

less or more” (Num. 22:18). 

A further suggestion of this conversation 1s 
Balaam’s disposition to surrender coupled with his 
clear conviction of God’s will. His disposition to 
yield is expressed in his invitation to the honorable 
men to tarry over night that he might inquire again 
of the Lord, in his consent to attend them to Moab, 
and in his counsel to the people of God to commit 
trespass in the matter of Peor. Then again his 
strange steadfastness is expressed in the word, “Be- 
hold I have received commandment to bless; and He 
hath blessed; and I cannot reverse it’ (Num. 23:20). 


That speech reminds us of the great Apostles, 
Peter and John, when they were enjoined by the 
Council that they should speak to no man in the 
Name of Christ, nor preach in the Name of Jesus. 

“But Peter and John answered and said unto them, 

Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto 

you more than unto God, judge ye. 


“For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen 
and heard” (Acts 4:19-20). 


James Russell Lowell wrote most truly: 


“Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, 

In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil 
side; 

Some great cause, God’s new Messiah, offering each the bloom 
or blight, 

Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the 


right, 

And the choice goes by forever ’twixt the darkness and that 
light. 

“Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her wretch- 
ed crust, 

Ere her cause bring fame and profit and ’tis prosperous to be 


just; 
Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands 
aside, 


AND THE EVANGELIST 125 


Doubting, in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified, 

And the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied.” 
The next suggestion of this Scripture is one of 

very present interest, namely, 


THE WOMAN AND THE WORD. 


Chapter 25 ff. 


Three of the most notable subjects are discussed 
here, namely, the question of the strange woman, 
that of woman suffrage, and that of woman subjec- 
tion. 

The 25th chapter is given almost entirely to the 
influence of the strange woman. It was Israel’s im- 
moral relations with the daughters of Moab that in- 
vited a fresh judgment from God and involved the 
whole people in false worship. If we would know 
what the Scriptures have to say against the strange 
woman, read this 25th chapter of the Book of Num- 
bers. God regarded adultery worthy of death. 
When Phineas saw it and took his javelin in his 
hand and thrust them to death, he executed the Di- 
vine command and brought upon himself the Divine 
approval. Compare that sentiment against this sin, 
with that expression in our sister city, by the recent 
conferee of physicians, some of whom favored legal- 
izing adultery, and hang your head in shame that 
we have come upon a time that has witnessed the 
disgrace of a profession of otherwise high honor, 
and remember that the statements of Dr. Shaw and 
Miss Anthony had serious occasion, namely, that it 
were better to protect virtue than to attempt to 
legalize and approve vice. 

The 27th chapter together with the 36th are de- 
voted solely to the question of woman’s rights. The 


126 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


daughters of Zelophehad had been denied the pos- 
session among the brethren of their father’s estate, 
and Moses brought their cause before the Lord; and 
the Lord spoke unto Moses saying, 


“The daughters of Zelophehad speak right; thou shalt 
surely give them a possession of an inheritance among 
their father’s brethren; and thou shalt cause the inherit- 
ance of their father to pass unto them’ (Num. 27:7). 


When we remember that after the millenniums of 
so-called onward march in civilization, it is yet true 
in some states there is no law to compel a man to 
support his family; that in others there is no right 
of property accorded to women. In many states her 
private earnings cannot be her personal property ; 
and in more she has no legal claim to her children. 
It would seem that our honorable legislators would 
need to go back and sit at the feet of Moses and 
learn of him, or attend on what God has said. 


But while all this is true we are forced to call at- 
tention to woman’s subjection. In the 30th chapter 
attention is called to man’s supremacy and woman’s 
subjection, and the order introduced into Genesis 
is emphatic as reminding us of the Divine will. I be- 
lieve that order is at once wise and gracious. The 
family could never be a unit of power if it were a 
two-headed affair. As Dr. Parkhurst says, “The 
husband is the house-band in every well ordered 
household.” The man will defer to the woman and 
the woman will defer to the man, and there will be 
a good deal of domestic reciprocity. * * But when 
we have amplified all that we consistently can along 
that line, it still remains that it is the man and not 
the woman that is intended to be the house-band, 
and that the husband and father is the appointment 


AND THE EVANGELIST 127 


of Divine determination. The Bible teaches us that 
this is so; all men know that this is SO; most wom- 
en know that this is so; and such women as do not 
have a presentiment to that effect go about with 
voices pitched sufficiently high to dull and deaden 
the note of those presentiments”. So, after all that 
may be justly said about woman’s rights, it still re- 
mains the truth that Paul declared, 


“The head of the woman is the man; * * for the man 
1s not of the woman, but the woman of the man; neither 
was the man created for the woman; but the woman for 
the man. 

“Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, 
netther the woman without the man, in the Lord” (I Cor. 
TTe2e1 1); 

Finally let us revert in thought to the fourth great 
theme of these chapters. 


REFUGE CITIES AND SALVATION 


Chapters 35, 36. 


Your reading of the Book of Numbers has famil- 
larized you with the Divine appointment of these 
cities, their number, location and purpose. It was 
God who suggested them; He determined that they 
should be six in all; He saw to it that they were 
located so as to be within half a day’s journey from 
every man; and he fixed their purpose as a refuge 
for man-slayer. 

They were appointed as a refuge from law. Not 
by Divine appointment but by human practice was 
death for the man-slayer accomplished by the next 
of kin. Now in this city of refuge God makes pro- 
vision for the man-slayer who shall do his deed 
without malice aforethought. It was softening 
grace against inexorable law; it was the appoint- 


128 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


ment of Divine love against the practice of human 
anger. But a few years ago the law of this land 
made every black man born beneath our flag, a slave 
of some white master. The only possible escape 
from that slavery was to cross the Canadian line and 
come under the flag that made all the people, 
touched by its ample folds, free. When a fugitive 
slave crossed the Ohio river, or the Mason and 
Dixon line, he came into the country of friends, but 
in that fact he found no certain salvation. Even there 
the law could lay its hand upon him and drag him 
back to prison or the plantation. But the law of the 
land did not reach one inch beyond the Canadian 
line. So the common law of this ancient people be- 
came inoperative at a line 2000 cubits outside the 
limits of the refuge cities. What a type this of the 
salvation that we have in Christ—a salvation which 
Paul expressly teaches to be freedom from the pow- 
er of the law. 

This city of refuge was easily accessible. Many a 
time I have read sermons that would speak as 
though the gates of the city of refuge were open 
day and night, and I think that likely. But it is not 
declared in the Word. A better access than the open 
gate was offered to every fleeing soul. The suburbs 
of these cities allotted to the priests for the grazing 
of their cattle were sacred grounds, and the record 
is that the man did not have to make his way over 
a closed gate or even through an open one. All he 
had to do was to get himself within that suburban 
line. What a marvelous illustration of the access- 
ability of Christ! No wonder Christ uttered that 
gracious sentence, “Him that cometh to Me I will 
in no wise cast out’. Accessible to the sinner is this 


AND THE EVANGELIST 129 


God, this Saviour, this refuge from sin and the 
slayer. 

Again, these cities provided a perfect shelter. In 
the Book of Joshua we read, 

“And if the avenger of blood pursue after him, then 
they shall not deliver the slayer up into his hand; because 
he smote his neighbour unwittingly, and hated him not be- 
foretime. 

“And he shall dwell in that city, until he stand before 
the congregation for judgment, and until the death of the 
high-priest that shall be in those days; then shall the slay- 
er return, and come unto his own city, and unto his own 
house, unto the city from whence he fled” (Josh. 20:5, 6). 
One of the first buildings erected after the found- 

ing of Rome was one to the god of refuge. That 
was open to all who came. Here the slave was free 
from his master, the debtor from his creditor, and 
the murderer from the avenging magistrates. Such 
were these cities of refuge, and yet they only prom- 
ised and typified that one refuge which is yours and 
mine; and David said, “God is our refuge”. Paul, 
in his Epistles to the Hebrews, speaks of the 

“strong consolation which we have who have fled for 

refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: 

“Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul both 
sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the 
veil; 

“Whither the forerunner ts for us entered, even Jesus, 
made an High Priest forever after the order of Melchise- 
dec” (Heb. 6:18-20). 

Beloved, if your salvation and mine is secure, so 
long as our High Priest lives, then indeed it is for- 
ever and ever. 

“Safe in the arms of Jesus, 
Safe on His gentle breast, 
There by His love o’ershaded, 

Sweetly my soul shall rest. 


Hark! ’tis the voice of angels, 
Borne in a song to me, 


130 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


Over the fields of Glory, 
Over the jasper sea. 


“Safe in the arms of Jesus, 
Safe from corroding care, 

Safe from the world’s temptations, 
Sin cannot harm me there. 

Free from the blight of sorrow, 
Free from my doubts and fears; 

Only a few more trials, 
Only a few more tears. 


“Jesus, my heart’s dear refuge, 
Jesus has died for me; 

Firm on the Rock of Ages, 
Ever my trust shall be. 

Here let me wait with patience, 

Wait till the night is o’er; 

Wait till I see the morning 
Break on the golden shore.” 


CHAPTER lll, 


OUR STANDARD IS OUR STRENGTH 





OUR STANDARD IS OUR STRENGTH 


“Every man * * shall pitch by his own standard” 
(Num, 2:2). 
=) [age Scripture going before and immediately fol- 

lowing our text, seems to be a mere jumble of 
hard names. But in this verse the word of the Lord 
brings order out of confusion. The calling of the 
muster-roll is completed with a sentence which as- 
signs his place to every man. Now that the in- 
dividuals are disposed of, it only remains to arrange 
the position of the lines, and the march may begin 
at a moment’s warning. 

There are not a few phases of life in which a roll- 
call seems to be a necessity. Confusion appears to 
rise of itself, is just tumbled into, but order is most 
often affected with difficulty, and only comes about 
when a master is in command. As children at the 
public school we did not consider the roll-call a use- 
less performance. The names may have been varied, 
and some of them almost unpronounceable, yet the 
teacher delighted in this task because it resulted in 
setting things to rights. Two objects are had in the 
school-roll, two were contemplated in the command 
of our text, and perchance the same motives most 
often give rise to the great muster-rolls of life. The 
one is a strengthening of the sense of individuality, 
personal responsibility. The other contemplates 
some organization of individuals into classes, corps, 
lines, etc. In our text God addresses His speech to 
“every man’. Some people talk as if they half 
doubted Jehovah’s acquaintance with us as indi- 
viduals; as though the human unit were swallowed 


up and lost sight of in the great human mass. Be 
133 


134 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


not deceived. Shall Raphael forget his “Transfigu- 
ration”, and remember only the panorama to which 
his genius gave birth? Shall Michael Angelo forget 
his “Moses” and think only of a galaxy of marble 
statuary? Shall the fond parent forget the son, or 
the daughter, and be mindful only of the family? 
Then why suppose that God is unmindful of your 
individualism and mine, since we are the concep- 
tions of His Divine genius, the work of His holy 
hands and the offspring of His infinite love? 

It was for the deepening of this individual sense 
that Paul wrote: “Let every man prove his own 
work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself 
alone, and not in another, for every man shall bear 
his own burden”. It was written to heighten the 
consciousness of personal accountability. “As I live, 
saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to Me, and 
every tongue shall confess to God; so then every 
one of us shall give an account of himself to God”. 

And yet after we have emphasized individuality 
as we may and ought to do, we will not find it mili- 
tating against the gathering of groups or the sense 
of interdependence. The very same writer who said, 
“Every man shall bear his own burden”, hastened to 
save his words from a too narrow interpretation by 
the added line: “Bear ye one another’s burdens and 
so fulfil the law of Christ”. The writer who said, 
“So then every one of us shall give an account of 
himself to God”, waited not for the ink to dry from 
these words before he was penning those others: 
“None of us liveth to himself and no man dieth to 
himself”. So I conclude that if one sentence of in- 
spiration cannot clash with another, the man is not 
lost sight of in the human mass, and although he 


AND THE EVANGELIST 135 


must join groups, and live in groups, and move with 
groups, still “every man” has the responsibility of 
deciding which is his circle, and of choosing the 
standard beneath which he will stand. 

I am aware that the standards of our text were 
only staffs or banners, and that those who gathered 
about them formed lines to march through the 
wilderness toward Canaan. But these standards 
meant more than wooden staffs and flaunting flags; 
they were the centers around which revolved social, 
intellectual and religious life. This march may have 
been confined as to place, but in its experiences, it 
was universal—a life march. So I must interpret 
our text this morning, “Every man shall pitch by ls 
own standard”. In the ring of social life let us begin 
with this statement of fact: 


STANDARDS ARE AT ONCE ITS BANE 
AND BLESSING. 


There is one kind of social communism that I be- 
lieve in, and there is another kind, which if I ever 
advocate it, I must first have lost my senses. I am 
persuaded that the Scripture is to be taken literally 
when it says, “God hath made of our blood all na- 
tions of men’. The Chinaman, the Japanese, the 
Hottentot is as much your brother and mine, as is 
the needy American. Each of them have a claim 
upon our lives which we may not disregard; a right 
to our sympathy and assistance which we dare not 
ignore or despise. If one of them hunger and there 
is opportunity, we must feed him; if he is naked we 
must clothe; if he thirsts we must give him to drink; 
if he is sick or in prison we must visit him. But that 
is not the social communism that many are just now 


136 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


advocating. The effort is to break down all lines, 
and merge all social circles into one great com- 
munion, in which distinction in birth shall be for- 
gotten, in breeding taken no note of, in education 
disregarded, in esthetic taste overlooked—an effort 
as unreasonable as impracticable. Human nature is 
too greatly above that of swine to ever allow that 
men be pigged together socially. Lift up your social 
standards then! They ought to exist, and “every 
man shall pitch by his own”. 

But if we enjoy their blessing, and escape the 
bane, we dare not raise up or rally about those that 
are false. 

Wealth is the false standard of social position 
in all too many cities and circles today. A man’s 
place in the various groups that grade from lower to 
higher is too often as absolutely dependent upon 
the size of his pocketbook as though he had to buy 
a ticket of entrance at a price corresponding to the 
position desired. When will society learn that 
money is a wretched measure of the man? How 
many new illustrations need we have of the truth 
that gold is more often a matter of accident, a ques- 
tion of heirship, or a tale of greed, than an evidence 
‘of intellectual acumen or force of character? Ed- 
ward Bellamy’s “Looking Backward” may be opti- 
mistic, and even visionary, but it will repay your 
study with its many sound social principles. One 
of that author’s greater intentions was the correct- 
ing of men’s methods of estimating their fellows. If 
his theories are impracticable they have at least the 
virtue of regarding character as above cloth, and 
brain above boodle. Whether his effort is to work a 
reform or not, it is a step in the right direction when 


AND THE EVANGELIST 137 


a brilliant author employs his rhetoric to expose a 
giant fallacy. Surely wealth in itself is no crime, 
and its possession, instead of branding a man as un- 
worthy of social distinction, often bespeaks his 
superior right to such honors. But falsity 1s intro- 
duced when circles disregard mutual affinities and 
overlook differences that must repel, and open 
widest arms to every man who brings a bit of gold. 

Along the track of this too widely prevalent 
practice is to be found the record of not a few fail- 
ures in life. Young men and women, dazzled and 
deceived by standards of splendid and expensive 
show, have grown weary of the dull colors in their 
own lives and have forsaken the very posts for 
which their birth, breeding and abilities had meas- 
ured them. No wonder the Apostle reserved the 
sentence, “The pride of life’, as the capstone or 
climax of his resume of all iniquity, “The lust of the 
flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life”, is the 
order of his speech. How often this “pride of life” 
has led men to forsake the standards of real honesty 
and largest opportunity, to take refuge beneath 
those of greater pretentions, but of far less safety. 
It is John Foster, I believe, who tells a tale in illus- 
tration of this truth. It seems that a young man liv- 
ing at Springfield, Mass., was most favorably con- 
sidered by a business firm who thought of employ- 
ing him at a splendid salary, and opening for him a 
way to partnership in their stock. But before they 
acquainted him with their intentions, they inquired 
after his private life. When they learned that he 
spent several nights of the week in a billiard room, 
and on Sunday afternoon drove a hired span into 
the country, they decided to give the place to anoth- 


138 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


er. The standard under which he had pitched was 
not so essentially immoral as false! His gambling 
was not so much a mania for the game as a neces- 
sity of keeping up his pretentions to wealth. His 
unnecessary expenditures rendered necessary some 
increase of revenues. Young man, pitch by your 
own standard, whatever one your neighbor may 
stand beside. Consult your own interests, note well 
your own ability, and take account of eventual good. 
If you would like a loftier standard than that under 
which you stand, climb to higher ground, and carry 
your own with you, and you will have it. 

But some one says, “What of heredity, of fam- 
ily, of blood?” That has long determined lofty 
standards abroad, and is fast becoming an important 
factor in American social life. There are not a few 
people who claim and are accorded a place beneath 
society's most ample folds, because their fathers 
were noble men, and their mothers most spirited 
women. I am a firm believer in heredity, but who 
can forget that it works in diverse directions? Dis- 
eases and vice have discovered a facility of trans- 
mission which health and virtue have seldom out- 
run, and the circle that emphasizes heredity is 
bigoted and blind if it does not consider its whole 
swing. You may remember Hawthorne’s teaching 
in his “House of Seven Gables”. He is looking upon 
the likeness of Judge Pyncheon, and comparing it 
with that of the founder of the home when he says, 
“That likeness implied that the weaknesses and de- 
fects, the bad passions, the mean tendencies and the 
moral diseases which lead to crime are handed down 
from one generation to another by a far surer proc- 
ess of transmission than human law has been able 


AND THE EVANGELIST 139 


to establish in respect to the riches and honor which 
it seeks to entail upon posterity.” A sad commen- 
tary, surely, on the law of boasted heredity, and yet 
how many circles furnish demonstrations of its 
truth. To my mind some of the most pathetic and 
curious scenes of real life are discovered in upper 
social circles. Who has looked upon their gather- 
ings, but has beheld men and women who were but 
a slight remove from fools, whose characters dis- 
covered consummate weaknesses, whose souls were 
dwindled and dwarfed, mingling as freely with 
the excellent in mind and spirit, as though a place 
purchased with father’s gold, or inherited from 
mother’s virtues were equally honorable with that 
attained by some force of personal character, or ac- 
quired by some individual excellence of mind and 
heart? How splendid a thing it would be if some 
best orator could have the ear of the youth of the 
land long enough to thunder into it the necessity of 
correct standards for social life. When will the day 
~ come in which we shall pitch by those that aspire to 
personal effort, that speak of personal worth, that 
rightly represent essential character? Not till then 
will young men cease to court those whose only at- 
tractions are their giddiness and their father’s gold. 
Until then will young women continue to open their 
parlors, and unbolt their hearts to men who, rely- 
ing upon the influence of a monied and virtuous 
ancestry, have before your very eyes, trampled a 
sister’s virtue under foot and in fiendish leer 
laughed at the wreck. I doubt if there be a fact of 
social life that gives such pain to the noblest among 
us, as the indisputable evidence that for family’s 
sake some such men are now permitted to stain the 


140 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


social circles of this city. Oh, would God that all 
knew and would practice the rules which Gresley 
put into words: “Reject the society of the vicious ; 
shun the agreeable infidel and the accomplished 
profligate; lay it down as a fixed rule that no bril- 
liancy of connection, no allurement of rank or 
fashion shall tempt you to associate with profligate 
or openly irreligious men! If you do fall into 
their vices, such it is, your heart will be estranged 
from virtue and the love of God.” You are to pitch 
by your own social standard. How important then 
that you make your own the right one! 

But as already intimated, standards affect other 
phases of life quite as much as they do its social 
side. 


THEY ARE HELPERS AND HINDERERS 
TO INTELLECTUAL PROGRESS. 


Here again it is necessary to distinguish between 
the true and the false, the higher and the lower, the 
nobler and the more debased. The young, if left 
without direction, are peculiarly apt to make fatal 
blunder at this point. There are not a few people 
who wait not till the bud of youth has fully blos- 
somed ere they have fixed their intellectual fate. 

Our indolence is too often an overmatch for our 
ambition, and our ease-seeking natures readily fall 
in with the debasing suggestion that we are in- 
capable of the largest learning and should school 
ourselves into contentment with mediocre attain- 
ments. Every man who decides upon such a stand- 
ard has most narrowly circumscribed his literary 
and scientific horizon. It may have been the supe- 
rior wisdom of Socrates that led him to affirm his 


AND THE EVANGELIST 141 


ignorance repeatedly. But often it is only the 
superior blindness, or the splendid laziness of young 
men and women that convinces them that the larger 
learning and richer culture are beyond their ken. 

I have sometimes thought, however, that certain 
older people were in part to blame for this meager 
estimate that the young too often put upon their 
own mental and spiritual powers. We are ready 
enough to detect in our juniors the first evidence of 
egotism, the slightest indication of an over-ambi- 
tion. We are ready enough to reprove the one and 
repress the other. We are all too slow to feel the 
pulse of a larger hope, the throb of loftiest aspira- 
tion that may be, yes often is, thrilling through 
the young life. It is not an unusual thing to hear 
parents and other elders call the children “upstarts”, 
and remind them of their “oversmartness”. Such 
compliments as would excite their faith in self, en- 
courage them to the largest expectation, and stimu- 
late them to best endeavor, are only too seldom 
heard. But a little while ago, I read a short com- 
ment upon Longfellow’s first poem. The writer said 
of it, “It was the realization of an early dream.” 

When a mere boy, Longfellow wrote from his 
boarding school, asking of the fond mother if she 
did not think that he might one day write books 
which would be read all over the land? What an- 
swer that mother gave her boy’s question, the author 
of this scrip did not say; perchance we shall never 
know. I imagine, however, that could the mother’s 
letter be found, its every line would sparkle with 
the wisest counsel, and appear almost swollen with 
the bigness of hope for her talented son. None 
should be surprised that Guizot’s children were am- 


142 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


bitious and talented, when they learn how well he 
understood their young lives, how thoroughly he 
sympathized with their early aspirations, and how 
kindly he touched and tended their loftiest hopes 
and sentiments. Not one of them but was worthy 
of such a father. The boy of his heart, his first-born 
son, had not death snatched him when just budding 
to manhood, promised to equal, if indeed he had not 
outstripped his illustrious sire. It was to that boy, 
as a contestant for one of the University prizes, that 
Guizot wrote: “Our destiny consists of two parts: 
The one is hidden from us and God settles it accord- 
ing to His will; the other depends upon ourselves, 
and this is the only one which we ought to trouble 
ourselves about. * * You are right to be ambitious. 
Ambition is one of the best of youthful passions. It 
is a wish for distinction, unalloyed by any of the 
bad feelings which are often mixed with it in later 
life. One is sometimes too ambitious at forty, but 
never at twenty.” I call that the lifting of a lofty 
standard, and a most sensible way of stimulating 
the boy to choose it as his own, pitch by it and 
prove himself worthy of it. 


It was Sir Wm. Hamilton, was it not, who gave 
us that striking sentence? “In the world there is 
nothing great but man; in man there is nothing 
great but mind.” Then how dare we neglect this 
noblest part of self; how can we allow, much less 
assist, our loved ones to be guilty of the same? 
Young men and women, let me speak freely to you! 
If we do not grow in mind, become cultured, keen 
in intellect, broad in judgment and wide in learning, 
the fault will most often be with our ignoble efforts, 
not with our more capable natures. Pitch by the 


AND THE EVANGELIST 143 


standard of hope, stand under the flag of self-help, 
and by the grace of God, make the most of life on 
the intellectual side. 

There is another theory, somewhat popular today, 
which deserves to be exploded. I refer to the notion 
that to educate boys is to render them effeminate 
and unfit them for the more manly duties of life. 
This notion accounts in part for the unequal state 
of things now existing in this and other cities of the 
land. Our public schools, high schools and acade- 
mies are filled with girls and young ladies, whilst 
the boys and young men are found following busi- 
ness pursuits. Fathers who have adopted this plan 
of education for their children, attempt to justify 
their action by affirming that, aside from the im- 
portance of remuneration, the boys are getting the 
most practical learning. We do not charge that 
there is any want of sincerity in this plea, but are 
soundly convinced that it is faulty and hurtful in 
the extreme. It is that theory which has circum- 
scribed many a more capable life to the narrow 
limits of a dingy shop, restricted personal influence 
to the small circle of fellow-laborers, tied and 
tethered its victim to the lowest rung of the intel- 
lectual ladder. With a false premise no right con- 
clusion is reached, and when your theory of life is 
wrong, its out-working is apt to tell the tale. 
Against the soundness of this theory Henry Ward 
Beecher once hurled such facts of history as left it 
tottering if not utterly demolished. He says, “When 
you show me a man who has been cultured, you 
ought to show me a man who is better built to meet 
the contingencies of life than any that are un- 
cultured.” He reminds us of our experience in the 


144 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


late war with these different classes. We expected 
the rude swain, who had known only coarseness, to 
make the better soldier, and resist the hardships of 
the campaign more easily than the college-bred 
and the sons of wealth and refinement. But the facts 
as noted were, that for endurance of hardships, effi- 
ciency of service, adaptation to the camp-life and 
the survival of suffering and wounds, the brain pow- 
er was the preservative, and mental resources far 
outweighed muscular strength. He also cites the 
history of the French Revolution, and reminds us 
that the nobility bore their exile and wanderings 
more nobly and were far more self-helpful than the 
common peasantry and the lower ranks. Neither 
does he let us forget the trials of Kossuth and his 
noble band after the Hungarian expulsion. He 
pertinently remarks of them, “No equal number of 
men ever justified culture more, by adapting them- 
selves to their circumstances, and without com- 
plaint or repining, meeting the hardships of their 
changed methods of livelihood.” 

We cannot all know equal ambition; we will not 
all follow like studies; we should not all end at the 
same goal; but every one should be impressed that 
in intellectual life, his standard is his strength, and 
whilst pitching by his own, purpose to carry it with 
advancing step. 

But our first suggestion will not be complete in 
statement until this one is added: 


STANDARDS ARE THE FRIENDS AND 


FOES OF RELIGION. 


That Christianity has often been impeded by false 
standards is as certain as that its truth is capable 


AND THE EVANGELIST 145 


of wrong and even hurtful interpretation. But that 
its strong staff of truth and its crimson flag of atone- 
ment have furnished at once a rallying point and an 
inspiration to the faithful hosts, none can deny. Dr. 
Cuyler, in a late article, shows at once the beauty 
and the necessity of raising our standards of re- 
ligion, instead of lowering them, as too many have 
done and are doing. But the religious decision is 
the first needful step. When Joshua stood before 
Israel and delivered a discourse, which reached its 
climax in the sentence, “Choose you this day whom 
ye will serve,” he declared an absolute necessity. 
As between the standards of good and evil, God 
and the devil, every man must choose. No feet are 
swift enough to do service under both banners; no 
arms strong enough to bring these standards into a 
common compass, and no soul is great enough to 
pay tribute to each. It was said of Jesus that he 
taught “as one having authority and not as the 
scribes”. There was no faltering in his speech, no 
uncertainty of sound or meaning. Yet in what 
words of His find you a more emphatic ring than in 
these? “No man can serve two masters; for either 
he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he 
will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye can- 
not serve God and Mammon”. Take your standard 
and pitch by it; you must be godly or godless. 
There are but two states in all the universe. 

To decide for God and holiness is to settle upon 
the standard most important, and yet there remains 
to be made another choice of considerable conse- 
quence. I refer to church connection or denomina- 
tional faith. We cannot be glad that our too meager 
knowledge of the truth, our poorer interpretations, 


146 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


our prejudices and petty preferences have divided 
our common Christian faith into many sects. But, 
on the other hand, it is well to remember that there 
is such a thing as a “denominational psychology.” 
So long as men continue to be born apart, bred dif- 
ferently, and enjoy independent thought, it is a good 
thing to have several standards so that every man 
may pitch by his own. Not by the one that he 
has a prejudice for, but by the one which he believes 
to be nearest the New Testament model. The story 
is told that an English gentleman, meeting his 
neighbor’s coachman on Monday morning, found 
him indulging a very positive smile. “Well, John,” 
said he, “what has happened to make you look so 
pleasant today?” “Why, sir, what do you think? 
We are a pretty lot at our house, that we are. I 
started out with five of us in the old carriage yester- 
day morning. First of all, I drove the young mis- 
tress to the church, and then old master to the 
Wesleyans; next I took young master to the Ro- 
mans, my wife went to the Ranters, and when I had 
put up the horse, I took a turn myself with the 
Calvinists.” Somebody says, “That is just it; that is 
what troubles me! There are so many divisions 
among those who own one Lord and read a com- 
mon Bible that I consider myself as well off to let 
them alone.” 

Many a husband, godless by preference, has em- 
ployed this argument against a wife’s tender en- 
treaties for the church. Many a son has met and 
opposed parental concern with this plea. This argu- 
ment is self-defeating, the plea its own contradic- 
tion. The man who rejects Christ Himself because 
His followers are gathered beneath many standards, 


AND THE EVANGELIST 147 


adds to existing divisions a new one, and one most 
radically removed from the measure of truth. If he 
claims to accept Christ and yet refuses to identify 
himself with any body of His people, he either ad- 
mits an inability to form an opinion, or else the 
want of courage to act that opinion out. This case 
is not unlike that of the Romish Priest who came 
to a Protestant Bible society meeting and said: 
“Now, gentlemen, here you are telling us that we 
should take the Bible for our guide and join you. 
Which one of you pray? Episcopalian, Baptist, 
Methodist, Presbyterian or Quaker? All of you 
claim to be the best and how shall I decide?” An 
Irishman present responded, “I can answer the gen- 
tleman: Believe on Christ, take His Word as your 
guide, join any one of us, and you will be a vast 
deal better than you are.” Yes, the man who be- 
lieves on Christ and takes His Word as a guide will 
find a standard which, if pitched by, will make him 
a vast deal better than he was. 

But when once we have pitched by a standard we 
ought to stay by it. You are westward sufficiently far 
to understand me when I say: There are too many 
squatters in the churches—people who pitch by the 
Baptist standard today, who will be professing alle- 
giance to the Methodist standard tomorrow, and 
who next-day will be seeking a place beneath the 
flag of Presbyterianism. I don’t know how any 
could have more admiration for the man who 
changes standards for the sake of truth than I do. 
But I confess that I feel a mingled pity and con- 
tempt for those who tramp from church to church 
and never do any good anywhere. Can’t you decide 
on a standard and pitch by it, or will you so act as 


148 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


to secure a name among those “who are ever learn- 
ing, yet never coming to a knowledge of the truth?” 
I hold up today, as infinitely above all, the standard 
of Christ’s righteousness; I point to the banner 
colored with His atoning Blood; I unfold the flag 
whereon is inscribed the word of His infinite love! 
Oh, men and women, dying without the camp, will 
you not rally to this standard and make it your 
own? Will you not pitch beneath this flag and be 
forever safe from sin and death, to engage in the 
sweet service of our loving Lord? 


Ci ra VeAM er es AA 


COURAGE VERSUS COWARDICE 





COURAGE VERSUS COWARDICE 
Numbers 13:30. 


“And Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, 
Let us go up at once and possess it; for we are well able 
to overcome tt” (Num. 13:30). 


PRESUMPTION is commonly against the 

minority report. It is both natural and right 
that it should be so, and yet every question ought 
to be settled upon its merits, and the recommenda- 
tions of a faithful, fearless minority might be more 
worthy of adoption than those of a majority, if that 
majority were characterized by faithlessness and 
fright, as in the instance of our text. 

The circumstances of this report you will never 
forget so long as your Old Testament studies re- 
main in memory, because few facts of their history 
impress the mind more forcibly than the visit to 
Canaan of the twelve Israelitish spies, and the con- 
flicting reports rendered upon their return. Ten of 
them said, 


“We came unto the land whither thou sentest us, and 
surely it floweth with milk and honey * * nevertheless the 
people be strong that dwell in the land, and the cities are 
walled, and very great, and moreover we saw the children 
of Anak there’ (Num. 13:27, 28). 

Confusion followed. Their very tones were trem- 
ulous and fear-producing. They had no need to 
recommend a retreat, for Israel’s camps were break- 
ing by the time they had finished their cowardly 
speech. 

It was at that juncture of excitement and scurry- 
ing that Caleb rose and, commanding silence, ex- 
pressed the faith that was in himself and Joshua in 
the form of a minority report, “Let us go up at once 

151 


152 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


and possess it, for we are well able to overcome it’. 
The report was brief, pointed and courageously 
practical. Like a good many other minority reports, 
it was not adopted; but unlike most of them, it was 
worthy of better treatment. As related to the speech 
of the ten, it stood for religious heroism versus 
cowardice; and in consequence it has been adopted 
by the true Israel of God as the marching order of 
His Church. But, to rightly interpret this speech is 
to properly understand its author. The lessons sug- 
gested by the language are largely what would be 
learned from a true understanding of Caleb’s life in 
its larger latitude. To two or three of these lessons, 
I invite your attention: 


SELF CONTROL MEANS COMMAND 
OF OTHERS. 
“And Caleb stilled the people before Moses” (Num. 
13:30). 
Any crank of an anarchist can excite a crowd into 
a howling mob, but it requires a man who com- 
mands himself to quiet them for a conference of 
reason. 


Calmness must be one characteristic of such a 
man. Caleb and Joshua were the calmest men in 
this camp. The reason was not far to seek. They 
had not joined the fickle multitude—the ten spies 
included—in forgetting that God lived, and was 
guiding Israel. The man who forgets that fact 
when confronted by danger makes a contribution to 
cowardly retreat. There are people who can never 
be appointed to any office of responsibility in re- 
ligious work on this very account. At the sight of 
opponent, or the sound of critic, they begin to shake 


AND THE EVANGELIST 153 


and become not only useless themselves, but com- 
municate their fear to their fellows and cause 
stampede. God and His guidance and power seem 
to pass instantly from the mind, and the quaking 
heart fails by its own faithlessness. 


There is a story told of a rough passage which a 
certain vessel had in coming from England. When 
the tempest had risen to fury, the passengers were 
overcome with fear. Some cried, some prayed, some 
grew livid and speechless. But one, and he a lad, 
went about the cabin as fast as he could, speaking 
encouragingly to every despairing soul. At last 
some one inquired, “Why do you feel no fear?” “Be- 
cause,’ replied the youth, “my father is the pilot on 
this ship.” That is why Jochebed was calm when 
she set Moses afloat in the ark of bulrushes. That is 
why Paul was calm in the storm off Malta. I know 
of no such striking illustration of the fear of faith- 
lessness as Jesus’ disciples displayed when, on the 
sea of Galilee, caught in a storm, they wakened 
Christ, saying, “Master, carest Thou not that we 
perish?” as if a craft could sink that had Him on 
board; as if the waves could beat down a vessel that 
carried the very God. 


And I know of no more beautiful illustration of 
the thought that calmness results in the power of 
command than Jesus gave to those same disciples, 
when rising up to face that furious storm, He fear- 
lessly said, “Peace be still”, and even the winds and 
the sea obeyed Him. If you would command aught. 
command yourself. One secret of Von Moltke’s 
power was at this point. Of him it was said that “he 
could hold his tongue in six languages”. No won- 


154 THE BIBLE OF THE ™BXPOSITOR 


der he was a general of others. The man who would 
rule without must rule within. 

To this work of command he must bring moral 
excellence. No reprobate Israelite could secure a re- 
spectful hearing in Israel that day. No man of 
mediocre morals and indifferent religion could have 
commanded attention for a minute. Even the ten 
spies listened to Caleb because his conduct in camp, 
all along the march, had been exemplary and his 
life above reproach. 

It is a matter of history that Napoleon became 
commander-in-chief of the armies of Italy when he 
was but twenty-six. The veteran officers wrought 
under him, taking their commands as implicitly as 
though he had been their senior. In speaking of the 
matter, Napoleon himself said, “It was only because 
I pursued the line of conduct in the highest degree 
irreproachable and exemplary. My supremacy could 
be retained only by my proving myself a_bet- 
ter man than any other man in the army. Had I 
yielded to human weaknesses, I should have lost my 
power.” It is always so, and men who command 
most widely are those of the largest moral excel- 
lence. In the realm of ethics and morals at least, a 
man’s power over his fellows is measured by what 
he is before God. 

In his chapter on “The Sovereignty of Character”, 
John Watson says, “When the individual has to 
form an estimate of his neighbor, in critical circum- 
stances, he ignores his opinions and weighs his 
virtues. No one, for instance, would leave his wife 
and children to the care of a trustee, because he 
happened to be a Trinitarian, but only because his 
friend was a true man before God.” Benjamin 


AND THE EVANGELIST 155 


Franklin said, “I was but a bad speaker, never elo- 
quent, subject to much hesitation in my choice of 
words, hardly correct in language, and yet I gen- 
erally carried my point,” and Smiles declares that 
“the explanation of that fact was found in the 
weight of Franklin’s moral character”. That was 
the secret of Caleb’s power to command a mob, and 
he who would command his fellows for the right 
and be able to speak courage into frightened hearts, 
and call to battle those already beating retreat, can 
only do so if he live Godly in Christ Jesus. 


CONFIDENCE CONTRIBUTES TO 
EMINENT SUCCESS. 


Here again Caleb is an excellent illustration of 
our claim. 

He believed in himself. As he sounded the re- 
cesses of his own heart, he found no cowardices 
there. As he looked at his own right arm, he saw 
no reason why it should not strike mightily for God. 
The man who has no confidence in himself is half 
defeated by that fact. There isn’t a soldier any- 
where, with limited or extended experience at war, 
but would prefer to follow a single Caleb to battle 
than go with the ten cowards that opposed him. 
One of the things that made General Grant great 
was his faith in his own projects and powers. You 
remember how the fall of Vicksburg came about. 
He dared to move his army below the city, and al- 
though he had to hazard much in passing his gun- 
boats by the formidable batteries, he undertook it. 
Sherman, McPherson, Logan and Wilson all op- 
posed him. They said of the plan as the ten spies 
had of entering Canaan, “such an effort meant 


156 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


danger,” and if it should happen that the city held 
out, the supplies of the army be cut off from the 
North, the Federal force would certainly fall a prey 
to the rebel guns. But, when he had heard their 
last argument, Grant only replied by expressing his 
conviction that he could carry the armies below and 
compel Vicksburg to capitulate. The trial was made 
and history records the success of it. If you are in 
business and have no confidence in yourself, there 
is little hope that you will succeed. If you are ina 
profession, the same principle holds. It is also a 
fact in spiritual experience, that we seldom accom- 
plish more than we believe we can. 

Mr. Spurgeon tells of a certain student of his col- 
lege who complained to him because so few people 
were saved in response to his preaching. Mr. Spur- 
geon, purposing to sound the young man’s faith, 
said, “You don’t expect to see souls saved every 
time you preach, do you?” “Oh, no, of course not,” 
the young man answered. “Then you won't,” said 
Spurgeon, “according to your faith be it unto you”. 

Caleb also believed in his fellows. When he said, 
“Let us go up at once and possess it”, the plural 
expressed his appreciation of Israel’s strength. He 
was not calculating to go forth as David did, single 
handed, to strike down Saul and set an army to 
flight ; nor yet as Jonathan did, taking with him only 
another, Joshua as armourbearer! But he was 
reckoning on the power of an army in which every 
man should play his part, and before the combined 
forces of which Goliaths might fall, city-walls tum- 
ble, as they did at Jericho when this same army set 
up a shout. He is a wise man who realizes that in 
the work of God he has a host to help him, and in 


AND THE EVANGELIST 157 


battling for the right, he has an army of the saved 
to stand with him. I often look upon my church and 
think, what could we not do if Caleb’s plural applied 
to us, and every member from the oldest to the 
youngest stood ready to make his contribution to 
every cause of the Christ? The power of co-opera- 
tion is fast being learned by the business world. 
Corporations on the one side and labor unions on 
the other, ought to teach the Church of God how 
to effect power and wield the same in the saving 
of a ruined world. There are few things that one 
man can do alone. But they are fewer still that co- 
operation cannot accomplish. 

One time Mr. William Steinway contributed an 
article to “Music” in which he told of his visit with 
Rubenstein one evening in 1872. He said, “Before 
Rubenstein left New York for his trip through the 
country, he called at Steinway Hall one afternoon 
for his mail. A bulky registered letter had come for 
him, and it contained letters from his children, a 
long letter from his wife, and newly-taken photo- 
graphs of his family. The tears came to his eyes 
as he said to me, “Friend Steinway, I feel so happy 
that I must play for you.” Meantime it had grown 
late, and everything was closed for the day. Four 
other musical gentlemen whom he knew personally 
had come in, and the doors were closed when he sat 
down to play for us. Twelve o’clock at night still 
found us there, spellbound, for such heavenly music 
we had never heard before. Then, and only then, I 
realized what four celebrated men could do—Goethe, 
who wrote the poem of the Erl King; Franz Liszt, 
who had transcribed it for pianoforte, and Anton 
Rubenstein, who could play it. Goethe, Schubert, 


158 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


Liszt, and Rubenstein, each at work in his own 
way, in his own sphere, but in this instance of 
matchless musical effort, all working together. So 
nicely had each done his own particular work that 
the result was all that could be desired. It is the 
lesson that Paul attempted to teach the Corinthian 
Christians who were saying, “I am of Paul, I am of 
Apollus, and I am of Cephas’”. He wanted them 
everyone to be of Christ and their labors combined 
to the advancing of His cause, for Paul knew that 
when the whole army of God should be in line, each 
keeping step with the other, that conquest was sure, 
and no giant or wall or mountain would keep her 
from accomplishing the Divine commands. 


But above all, Caleb believed in God. While he 
saw no reason for questioning the integrity of his 
own heart, or the strength of his own arm; while 
he took account of all Israel, when he said, “Let us 
go up at once and possess tt’, he looked for victory 
through his right arm, and for conquest by these 
Israelitish companies and battalions, only because 
he believed God was with them; only because by 
faith he had taken the measure of the Omnipotent 
arm and realized that all power was with Him. If 
Caleb had been familiar with Tennyson’s lines: 


“T hold it truth with him who sings 

To one clear harp in divers tones 

That men may rise on stepping-stones 

Of their dead selves to higher things,” 
he would have reckoned it the rankest heresy. He 
did not believe that “of their dead selves” men could 
do anything; but he did believe that by Divine as- 
sistance men could do everything. The modern 
adage, “One with God is a majority,” met his mind. 


AND THE EVANGELIST 159 


His friend and associate in this report, Joshua, ex- 
pressed at a later time what Caleb was already feel- 
ing when he said to Israel, “As for you, no man has 
been able to stand before you until this day. One man 
of you shall chase a thousand”, and he added another 
sentence, which forever stands as a sufficient de- 
fence of this apparent boast, “For the Lord your God, 
He it is that fighteth for.you, as He hath promised 
you’. When we learn to reckon on our God, coward- 
ice will be at an end, and conquest will be at hand. 


GOD’S MAN IS AIDED BY AN INSPIRED 
IMAGINATION. 


What seems impossible to others does not so ap- 
pear to him. The ten spies may have been honest 
men. I do not doubt they were. When they said 
the thing could not be done, it is likely they really 
thought so. Some men are so constituted that they 
can take accurate account of all the difficulties in 
the way of an enterprise, and can argue eloquently 
against it without being able to see the possibilities 
of a noble endeavor, or utter one word in its favor. 
We sometimes say that the great difference be- 
tween men depends upon the difference in their 
natural endowment. We sometimes say that the 
great difference between men is determined by the 
difference in their honest endeavor, and we are 
right, to a certain extent, in each of these speeches. 

But, more and more, I am persuaded that the 
secret of failure in many men is the fact that they 
are not seers. They have no night visions of great 
things undertaken, and no day dreams of great 
things accomplished. It is claimed for Napoleon 
that while his soldiers slept, the great Corsican was 


160 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


planning for the battle. In his mind’s eye he was 
marshalling his troops. To his mind’s active fancy, 
the enemy was in array and he was hurling his 
forces upon them, and so in his own vivid imagina- 
tion, he had passed through every battle and won the 
victory before the fighting ever began. A man who 
can do that is unspeakably blessed, and in his pres- 
ence every foe has occasion of trembling. When 
once Napoleon had explained a novel and daring 
plan to an officer, he was met with the speech, “It 
is impossible.” “Impossible?” said Napoleon. “Im- 
possible is the adjective of fools.” When the engi- 
neers whom he had sent to explore the dreaded pass 
of St. Bernard had returned, Napoleon said, “Is it 
possible to cross the pass?” “Perhaps,” was the 
hesitating reply, “it is within the limits of possi- 
bility!” “Forward then,” said the Little Corporal. 
Old soldiers laughed at the idea of taking his great 
army across the Alps, those 60,000 men with pon- 
derous artillery, and tons of cannon ball and bag- 
gage and all the bulky munitions of war. But Na- 
poleon believed it could be done, and shortly had 
illustrated his famous speech, “There shall be no 
Alps,” for in four days the army was marching on 
the plains of Italy. 

In the work of the Church of God, give me a 
man whose stretch of imagination makes a mental 
canvas on which God can portray His plans; a man 
whose faith in God makes all things to appear pos- 
sible; a Dr. Clough who sees 10,000 converts turn 
from heathenism to the Christ before he received 
his appointment from the committee of our Mis- 
sionary Union; a man who, like Russel Conwell, can 
look beyond the old mortgaged building of Phila- 


AND THE EVANGELIST 161 


delphia and behold the Grace Temple standing in 
its stead long before the architect has drawn the 
plans, beyond the little company that came at first 
to hear him and see the crowds that were to as- 
semble in that sanctuary on every Sabbath. The 
committee thought Dr. Clough was visionary and 
came very near not appointing him to India, and 
there were Philadelphians who said the same of 
Russell Conwell, but they were men of “visions” 
rather. They were the Calebs answering the cry of 
cowards, “We can’t! we can’t!” with the assertions 
of Christians, “God can! God can!” The longer I 
live the more am I impressed that all Divine ap- 
pointments are within the reach of human pos- 
sibilities, and that we need to pray not so much for 
strength as for sight; not so much for victory as for 
vision. “For all things are possible to them that be- 
heve’’. 

But Caleb did not expect to attain success with- 
out sacrifice. He was ready to pay the price of vic- 
tory by putting himself at the forefront of the bat- 
tle. He was ready to contribute his best service 
that conquest of Canaan might come. He was ready, 
if needful, to lay down his very life that the Lord 
might be honored and His Name made known. 
There is no success without sacrifice. Every now 
and then, when some candidates are before our dea- 
cons, desiring church-membership, one asks them 
why they want it. Some answer, “Because we think 
it will help us,” and others with a better understand- 
ing of Christianity reply, “Because we want to serve 
God and contribute what we can to His cause.” 
These latter, I believe have come into a true knowl- 


162 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


edge of the Divine plan and may safely anticipate 
the Divine approval. 

Years since, a servant girl in the city of Boston 
went to the office opened in behalf of India’s famine 
sufferers and counted out to the agent there $60.00. 
Ass she turned to leave, he said, “My young sister, can 
you afford to spare so much?” “It is all I have,” she 
answered, “but I cannot afford to keep it, knowing 
as | do now that women and children in India are 
dying in need of it.” No $60.00 she ever owned 
could come back to her bringing so large a return. 
God sees to it that success attends such sacrifice. 


Do you remember the old legend of Tritemious, 
the pious abbot of Herbipolis. One night, when 
kneeling at his altar wrapped in the ecstasy of 
prayer, he heard at the gate of the abbey a woman’s 
cry. Her son had been seized as a captive and must 
be ransomed with money or suffer death. He offered 
his prayers, since their store was drained to its last 
coin. “Not prayers,” she cried, “money alone can 
save my boy.” Seeing the holy emblems by the 
altar, 


““Give me,’ she said, ‘the silver candlesticks 
On either side of the great crucifix. 

God well may spare them on His errand sped, 
Or He can give you golden ones instead !’ 


“Then spake Tritemius: ‘Even as thy word, 
Woman, so be it! (Our most gracious Lord, 
Who loveth mercy more than sacrifice, 
Pardon me if a human soul I prize 
Above the gifts upon His altar piled!) 
Take what thou askest, and redeem thy child!’ 


“But his hand trembled as the holy alms 

He placed within the woman’s eager palms, 
And as she vanished down the linden shade, 

He bowed his head and for forgiveness prayed. 


AND THE EVANGELIST 163 


“So the day passed; and when the twilight came, 
He woke to find the chapel all aflame, 

And, dumb with grateful wonder, to behold 
Upon the altar candlesticks of gold!” 


2 ty! 2 
ae eo 





CHAPTER V. 


AMERICA’S PART IN THE LATE WAR 





AMERICA’S PART IN THE LATE WAR 


Numbers 32:6, 7. 

“And Moses said unto the children of Gad and to the 
children of Reuben, Shall your brethren go to war, and 
shall ye sit here? 

“And wherefore discourage ye the heart of the Children 
of Israel from going over into the land which the Lord 
hath given them”? (Num. 32:6, 7). 

HERE are men who believe that the preacher 

and the pulpit have nothing whatever to do 

with the secular subject of war. They argue that 
the nations—whatever their professions may be—in 
practice, ignore God, and that it is not the business 
of the Church to attempt the righting of a world 
that willingly remains subject to our adversary. 
They appeal to Scripture to remind us that we are 
not citizens of earthly commonwealths, but are “pil- 
grims and strangers”, citizens of an Heavenly King- 
dom, instead; and they push their plea still further 
by reminding us of the very name of the Church it- 
selfi—“Ecclesia”, a “called-out company”, or those 
who are called to quit the ways of the world and 
walk in another and a new fellowship. When I read 
a volume from the pen of a man who pleads for 
“other-worldliness’’, I find him quoting Scripture so 
copiously as to well-nigh persuade me of his posi- 
tion. When, on the other hand, I read a volume 
from the pen of some exponent of Social Service, I 
discover that he also can deal in Scripture almost 
as copiously. I am compelled, therefore, to con- 
clude that the Christian holds a dual citizenship, 
and that the division of these Scriptures involves a 
false exegesis. Asa Christian, and by reason of my 
167 


168 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


second birth, I have a citizenship in the heavenlies; 
as an American, and by reason of my first birth, I 
have a citizenship in the United States and in 
Minnesota, and I suspect there are obligations, 
serious and unshakable, that belong to both. 


To me there is not necessarily an inharmony be- 
tween these two; and yet, if I believed with some 
men that bloodshed was never justifiable under any 
possible circumstances; that war was murder and 
nothing better, I would be compelled to take their 
position and endure the consequencs, though they 
were ignominy, jail, or even death. The men who 
endure for conscience’ sake, and who believe honest- 
ly that there is a conflict between the command of 
the Lord and the demand of man, and who say, 
“When we are compelled to choose between these, 
we will abide by the first,” are true men. The fact 
that there are cowards, hypocrites, pretenders, soul- 
slackers, does not disprove the fact that there are 
also conscientious and courageous Christian men 
who refuse to go to war “for conscience sake”; and 
such men will forever retain respect. In fact, I am 
speaking for such men more than any other class, 
when I discuss this theme, “Is War Justifiable?” 
And yet, incidentally, I will also have some words 
to say to that company who are engaged in criti- 
cism; who make it their business to take the off- 
side of every subject; who opposed war when war 
was, and who would have opposed peace on the 
same ground had our government continued the 
policy of neutrality. Of such there seem to be not a 
few. 


One can stick to a proper interpretation of a 


AND THE EVANGELIST 169 


Biblical text, Numbers 32:6, 7, and yet fairly discuss 
our question. 


THE PRESIDENT’S RESPONSIBILITY. 


Moses was Israel’s leader, Israel’s captain, Israel’s 
president, if you please; and Moses is the man who 
was speaking in the text. “dnd Moses said unto the 
children of Gad, and to the children of Reuben, Shall 
your brethren go to war, and shall ye sit here’? (Num. 
32:6). Here was the one man and the only man, 
who could speak with authority. That fact suggests 
some others that grow out of it. 

First of all, National life involves leadership. 
Leadership results from a combination of facts and 
experiences. It commonly expresses natural force- 
fulness, and unusual resources. To be effective, it 
must also express popularity or influence with the 
people. Never was a man better adapted to office 
than was Moses. There never was a man by nature 
more forceful or resourceful than Moses. The favor 
of God was upon him from the first, and it was no 
more manifest in his miraculous preservation 
against the king’s decree than it was in his unusual 
education in the king’s palace, and his ever-deepen- 
ing conviction, as he witnesses the sufferings of the 
oppressed people, and grew into an appreciation of 
the fact that though he was a son of the court, and 
they were the slaves of the same, they were his 
people and he belonged to them and with them. 

The Lord, in His choice of leaders, never ignores 
character nor circumstances. He knew that these 
combined to make Moses an unusual man; and his 
leadership was not an election by a popular vote 
which had been unduly influenced by party friends! 


170 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


It came, rather, by a Divine appointment, in recog- 
nition of indisputable powers. When I review the 
history of the United States, it seems to me that in 
the instance of almost every president we have had, 
the clear indication of the Divine appointment is 
seen. What nation of earth ever knew a line of 
rulers more remarkable, or more righteous? The ex- 
ception has so seldom occurred as to merely empha- 
size the rule, and remind us afresh of the fact that 
partisanship sometimes thwarts the Divine purpose, 
but not often. Scarcely in a lifetime have I voted 
the straight democratic ticket; and not once since 
I reached my maturity have I been an ardent ad- 
vocate of its every leader. But I am fully convinced 
that when Mr. Wilson, the educator, was taken out 
of the office of college president to become a state 
governor, God had begun to move toward a leader 
for the stressful days that He saw coming to our 
country. No man had ever held that office since 
America had a beginning who was compelled to 
meet aS many exigencies as arose while Woodrow 
Wilson was president; and his mistakes were few, 
while his counsels had about them the aroma and 
clear hints of a higher source. 


In the late war, it fell to President Wilson to 
speak and say whether we should sit still or join 
our brethren across the sea in use of canon and 
sword. For many months influential men in all 
parts of the country criticised and severely con- 
demned his attempt to keep America out of this 
awful maelstrom. His neutrality was denounced in 
scathing terms, and the newspapers of the country 
very generally joined in the fusillade and confusion 
of noise in the midst of which it must have been 


AND THE EVANGELIST 171 


difficult for the chief executive to think clearly and 
counsel wisely. When the historian of the future 
comes to report the world events of the three years 
that preceded our declaration of war, his statement 
of facts will involve a tribute to the leadership 
America enjoyed, a leadership not excelled in the 
course and conduct of national potentates. 

Political prominence creates personal responsi- 
bility. Moses’ leadership of Israel compelled him to 
be her mouthpiece. Whether he wished it or not, he 
must determine whether it would be war or neutrality 
for the children of Gad and Reuben. He must have 
hated to send those men to the conflict. Doubtless 
he loathed the shedding of blood. I suspect that in 
his heart he verily wished the customs of war were 
wiped from the face of the earth, for Moses was no 
rude barbarian; he was the biggest man the world 
has ever produced, the Man from Nazareth ex- 
cepted. He had the clearest vision granted to any 
prophet since God appointed that office. He had 
the profoundest regard for the human race ever 
finding expression in literature or in language. And 
yet the day struck when Moses spake the word that 
sent Gad and Reuben to the scene of conflict. 

I am by nature opposed to the shedding of blood. 
It seems to me that by confession of the person and 
principles of Jesus Christ, | am irrevocably com- 
mitted to pacification and belong absolutely with 
those who believe that “the Church of God”, as 
such, should not fail to miss the unspeakable bless- 
ing pronounced upon “the peacemaker” ; and yet, I 
am quite confident that had I been in the position of 
leadership, and had known as President Wilson 
knew for many, many months, the insults, intrigues, 


172 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


and intentions of the enemy, I should have reached 
the exact conclusion to which he finally came, and 
said, “We can keep out of this conflict no longer!” 
President Wilson realized the awfulness of flinging 
a peaceful people into the most deadly conflict the 
world had ever seen, and one so unusual in nature 
and character that few men in the world imagined 
that such a holocaust could occur at the close of nine- 
teen centuries of Christian teaching. But the devil- 
ish features which that conflict took on will forever 
remain the defense of our nation’s participation in 
it. Had the well-established rules of warfare been 
regarded ; had humanity seemed to be expressing it- 
self on the field of conflict; had the questions in- 
volved rested for their settlement in a test of 
strength as between Old World powers, then our 
land would as well have stood aside, and should 
have so done, and let Europe and Asia settle the 
conflicts which they themselves had created. But 
when war takes such a form as to convince the man 
who holds the destinies of a nation in his own hand, 
that it is a conflict between barbarism and civiliza- 
tion, between the savagery of materialism and the 
sanctity of idealism, between might and right, then 
we must either unsheathe the sword, or consent to 
lose all the advantages accrued in twenty centuries 
of Christian teaching, and return to the times and 
customs of Goths, Vandals, and Huns. I am ashamed 
to admit that twenty centuries of Christian teaching 
have not more profoundly influenced the conduct of 
men ; and yet, since the facts face us, I am compelled 
to say war were better than a return of barbarism, 
and the triumph of the sword is to be preferred 
above the triumph of savagery, and thereby to justi- 


AND THE EVANGELIST 173 


fy the man whose political prominence compelled 
him to speak the word of battle. As Lowell says: 


“New times demand new measures and new men; 
The world advances, and in time outgrows 
The laws that in our fathers’ days were best.” 


I had hoped that human nature had been a bit 
improved by all the tedium and toil of twenty 
centuries of teaching; but, like many of my more 
deluded brethren, I reckoned without my host, and 
again I find myself corrected by the Word of the 
Lord, and impressed with the truth that in the 
natural man “there is no good thing”. 

National exigencies call for new counsels. When 
this moment broke, Moses rose to the occasion and 
uttered the words of wisdom herein recorded. Mr. 
Wilson did the same. Think of the method em- 
ployed! He had never declared war, and perhaps 
never would have so done. He recognized that war 
was upon us, and called the nation to self-defense ; 
and there is a distinction with a difference. The 
sinking of the “Lusitania” was scarcely a sufficient 
occasion for war. It is impossible for great combat- 
ants to fight without passersby getting in their path 
and suffering serious injury; but now that it comes 
out that our executive at Washington knew that in 
addition to the violation of neutrality, there had 
been repeated insults, injustices, and threats from 
the highest source and intrigues involving our 
closest neighbors in a frameup against us, and an 
attempt even to control our own Congress and 
Senate, and a spy system reporting the sailing of 
our ships with the sinister intent of having them 
sunken, and practically every other form of an open 


174 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


fight, save the frank declaration of it—that exi- — 
gency, I say, called for action. 

Those of us who were born in America, whose 
ancestors for generations enjoyed its free institu- 
tions, and profited by its equitable and righteous 
laws, and who have been privileged an undisturbed 
exercise of our conscience in all matters of faith as 
well as conduct, may not as fully appreciate our in- 
heritance as men who have come into it by adoption. 
The most ardent advocates of war with whom I 
have talked were either at one time citizens of Ger- 
many or sons of such citizens. These men have the 
keenest appreciation of the freedom enjoyed in 
America, and are the most eloquent in their lauda- 
tions of our democracy. The only thing that can 
reconcile a pacifist to such a conflict as that in which 
We are now involved is the fact that we could not 
avoid it, and at the same time vindicate the prin- 
ciples of righteousness and safeguard the rights of 
the people; and both of these must of necessity ever 
remain dearer than life itself. 


It was on that basis that Moses made 


THE FRATERNAL APPEAL. 


Serious as the present situation is, it has its hu- 
morous features. It is little short of humorous to 
see those men who have been talking of the “mis- 
takes of Moses” and who have been using pulpits, 
dedicated to the honoring of the Word of God, for 
the purpose of degrading the word of the greatest 
authority, now turning back to tell the people what 
Moses had to say! Several times Israel concluded 
it could dispense with Moses’ services; but in each 
instance, learned from the saddest experiences and 


AND THE EVANGELIST 175 


the most serious consequences, the folly of that at- 
tempt. 

The new Israel—the Church of God—is now be- 
ing taught after the same manner, and being com- 
pelled to turn back to Moses for both counsel and 
guidance. It is a perfect marvel how he outlined 
for that people in that time, and for our people in 
our time, and all people in all times, the basis of 
righteousness in battle. 


His first plea is on the ground of blood-kinship. 


“Shall your brethren go to war, and shall ye sit here’? 
(Num. 32:6). 


“Brethren” then expressed blood-kinship and kin- 
ship in faith. Israel was one at both points. She 
descended from Abraham and it was a common 
blood that coursed through all her veins. She be- 
lieved in one God, the Creator of the universe, and 
the only rightful Ruler in it. 

We have a twofold fellowship to be defended 
now also. As in Moses’ day, so now, blood and be- 
lief are the only fraternal ties that will endure the 
last possible test. George Lorimer, referring to the 
sneer that Bismark once made concerning America, 
namely, that it was a “mongrel population” and 
could not claim kinship with anything, answered, 
“Substantially we are one race upon this continent, 
and that race has more in common with Great 
Britain than with any other.” The Celt and Saxon 
originally occupied the north of Germany and Den- 
mark, Sweden and Norway, but on the little Isle 
they came together and, mingling their bloods, made 
the Anglo-Saxon, a result exactly such as has been 


176 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


wrought out on American soil. Somebody has writ- 


Let 
“And now that the two are one again, 
Behold on their shield the word ‘Refrain’, 
And the lion cubs fain sing the eagle’s song 
‘To be stanch and valiant and free and strong.’ 
For the eagle’s beak and the lion’s paw, 
And the lion’s fangs and the eagle’s claw, 
And the eagle’s swoop and the lion’s might 
And the lion’s leap and the eagle’s sight, 
Shall guard the flag with the word ‘Refrain’ 
Now that the two are one again.” 

It was on a basis of an advance civilization. 
Moses was not advocating a ruthless slaughter for 
the sake of war itself. He believed the Canaanite 
an enemy of the Lord, and so described him. And 
he looked upon the occupancy of that land by Israel 
as the only hope of its future good. As between bat- 
tles that would send men to an untimely death and 
the barbarism that would retain the land as the 
special theater of sin in its worst form, Moses chose 
battle rather than barbarism. In the average nation 
a man imagines its civilization superior. I have no 
question whatever that Germany really felt that, in 
attempting to force its ideas upon the world, it was 
conferring a favor; and yet when one remembers 
that Germany has been the seat and source of skep- 
ticism ; that by its scholars Christ has been despised 
and the Scriptures have been discredited, he is not 
enamored of the notion that rationalism would right 
the world, or militarism the sooner bring the mil- 
lennium, or German “kultur” quicken civilization. 

On the other hand, there may come out of that 
late conflict a decided quickening to certain desir- 
able features of the higher civilization. The Cru- 


saders engendered bloodshed and battle, and yet 


AND THE EVANGELIST 177 


Dr. Richard Storrs has called attention to the effects 
of the same: “They mobilized the population of 
Europe; they accustomed nations hitherto hostile to 
work together; they broke the yoke of baronical 
tyranny; they changed and equalized properties; 
they stimulated invention and geographical re- 
search.” Dr. Lorimer believes that they also led in- 
directly to the revival of learning, to the Reforma- 
tion under Luther, and to the methods of modern 
commerce. 

When I say this I am not forgetting the unde- 
sirable features of every war, and it will take a cen- 
tury or more for the world to recover the evil effects 
of the awful conflict lately perpetrated under cover 
of battle. 

And yet, if out of it good comes, it will only be a 
new illustration of the fact that after all God can 
work His will in spite of the devil’s greatest en- 
deavors, and can make “all things work together for 
good”, notwithstanding Satan’s world-supremacy. 

It was also in the interest of the Divine plan. God 
had His purpose to accomplish through Israel, and 
He had elected her to work out His will on Canaan’s 
soil. Doubtless it will be discovered again that all 
was not chaos, that the fortunes of battle were not 
matters of accident, and that the final victory will 
not be such because it so happened that we won, 
but because God was with us. If America’s partici- 
pation in this war, and her method of conducting it 
were not such as to bring the Divine approval, there 
would be little hope of her final success. When 
Abraham Lincoln, in the darkest days of the Civil 
War, called upon the nation for a day of fasting and 
prayer and humiliation, he set his seal to it that God 
would be the determining force in conflict; and 


178 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


when he expressed the wish, not so much that God 
might be on the side of the Northern armies, but 
that the Northern armies might be on the side of 
God, he showed himself at once an astute statesman 
and a Spirit-instructed man. Sir William Dawson, 
a man whose knowledge of science and loyalty to 
the Scriptures created in one person an ideal com- 
bination, in later life wrote, “In my time I have 
seen so many abuses rectified and so many great 
evils overthrown, and so much done for the material 
and spiritual welfare of humanity, that I look for- 
ward to better things to come. At the same time 
there are dangers ahead that may lead to great 
catastrophes for the time being. Yet, somehow, 
good seems to come out of great wars and other 
evils. Just now the dangers that appear to threaten 
the world from political and military causes do not 
alarm me, because I have seen so many things come 
on like storms, yet pass away and leave good be- 
hind. I am certainly prepared to testify that all the 
time I have been in it, the world has really been ad- 
vancing both in the removal of great sins and the 
propagation of truth and light. The future is in the 
hand of God, and we may trust in Him, more 
especially upon His work in the hands of the Sa- 
viour and the Holy Spirit.” 

Certainly the true Christian cannot exercise a less 
confidence, and as he responds to the call of the 
country, he ought to go convinced that his conten- 
tion is not a selfish one, and that the warfare he is 
making can be so made as to meet the Divine ap- 
proval, and help to bring about the Divine plan. 


But Moses dealt with one thing more, 


aa 


AND THE EVANGELIST 179 


THE DIVINE PROMISE 


The land had been apportioned to these tribes. 
Some men will say that God had no such right; but 
all such forget the ownership of land. We live ina 
day when the Government deeds to the individual 
and the individual deeds to another individual, and 
the individual and the government alike have for- 
gotten that God owns. “The earth is His and the 
fullness thereof.” “The cattle upon a thousand hills 
and the silver and gold” are His and He has a right 
to do what He will with His own. He gave Canaan 
to the Israelites. His conduct has justified itself in 
the course of human history. The savages who per- 
ished from that portion of the earth yielded up a 
soil which became the source and center of every 
sacred influence that has been felt to the ends of the 
earth. It is just possible, you know, that when God 
made America the refuge for the oppressed of the 
Old World, and pushed the savage back to give the 
Puritan a new standing ground, that He was only 
determining a new Canaan in which to build a light, 
the shining of which would be seen afar and the 
warmth and radiance of which should yet keep the 
world from freezing by infidelity, and from dying 
from increasing darkness. 

Modern Protestant missions were born in Eng- 
land and received their original impetus from Carey, 
the cobbler; but this civilizing and Christianizing of 
men has found its most fruitful source upon our 
own soil, and the representatives of the American 
church have been the missionaries to every land on 


earth. 
“From Greenland’s icy mountains, 
From India’s coral strand, 


180 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


Where Afric’s sunny fountains 
Roll down their golden sand; 
From many an ancient river, 
From many a palmy plain, 
They call us to deliver 

Their land from error’s chain.” 


Who can doubt that God had this movement in 
His mind, and was simply making ready for it when 
He turned the prow of Columbus’ ship to these 
shores, and followed his landing with scores of oth- 
ers, and brought to this continent the most con- 
secrated and Christian? 


They accepted the land appointed. The war to 
which Moses advised was not to be animated by the 
greed of gain. Reuben and Gad were not to go 
forth on a war of aggression; they were not to de- 
stroy the kings of weaker kingdoms, and subject the 
people to slavery and possess themselves of the 
land; in fact, they were to have nothing whatever 
from this conflict save the privilege of establishing 
their brethren in the place appointed of God. That 
once done, they were to go back on the East side 
of Jordan and settle upon the soil they already pos- 
sessed. What a parallelism with our late position! 
Had it been announced that the intent of war was 
to take Germany away from the Germans, and make 
an American dependency of it, the majority of our 
people would have repudiated the idea. The griey- 
ance grew out of Alsace Loraine, the occupancy of 
Belgium and France, the oppression of Poland, the 
deception and undoing of Russia, the determination 
of the enemy to take every possible quarter and 
make subjects of every conquered people. Before 
the war they demanded a place in the sun and never 
said how large that place should be, and the nations 


AND THE EVANGELIST 181 


of the earth came to fear that if they were not de- 
feated, those who had appropriated God and made 
Him “a German God”, might, with equal propriety, 
occupy the earth and make it “a German world”. 


Years ago this thought was not nearly as offen- 
sive as it is today. The conflict made exhibition of 
a spirit which many of us never believed existed, 
and which we were indeed slow to receive. But the 
stormy day adds new illustrations of what it would 
mean for the Allies to fail. Victory was never 
passed to men on platters, and it never will be. If 
Canaan was to be occupied by Israel, they must con- 
tend for it and fairly win; and they reminded them- 
selves every inch of the way that apart from God 
they could do nothing. 


Rudyard Kipling, had he never written anything 
else, would have made himself immortal by the 
single poem, “The Recessional”: 


“Far-called our navies melt away— 
On dune and headland sinks the fire, 
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday 
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre! 
Judge of the nations, spare us yet, 
Lest we forget—lest we forget. 


‘Tf, drunk with sight of power, we loose 
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe, 
Such boasting as the Gentiles use 

Or lesser breeds without the law; 

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, 

Lest we forget—lest we forget. 


“Ror heathen heart that puts her trust 
In reeking tube and iron shard, 
All valiant dust that builds on dust, 
And guarding calls not Thee to guard; 
For frantic boast and foolish word, 
Thy mercy on Thy people, Lord. 
Amen.” 


182 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


Now, may we conclude by reminding of another 
thing, namely, that there is a greater war to be won 
and a greater land to be occupied? I speak of the 
war against the great Adversary, Satan, himself, 
and the Land that lieth on high, to which human 
wars will never come. There was a theory, rather 
widespread in Europe, that every man who died on 
a battle-field won both. I do not believe it! I can 
find nothing in the Book called the Bible that in- 
dicates that the world-warrior is assured as a re- 
ward, Heaven—eternal life. But I do find that if 
he resists the Adversary, deliberately chooses Jesus 
Christ to be his Leader, finds under the blood- 
stained banner of Calvary his place, he will be a 
victor indeed, and Heaven and immortality are his 
sure inheritance. The plea that the Government 
made then to our boys had some kinship to that 
which I now make to boys and girls alike, to men 
and women in middle life, and in old age, 


“Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able 
to stand against the wiles of the devil. 

“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against 
principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the 
Bess of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high 
places. 

“Wherefore, take unto you the whole armour of God, 
that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and hav- 
ing done all, to stand. 

“Stand, therefore, having your loins girt about with 
truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; 

“And your feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel 
of peace; 
“Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall 
be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And 
take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, 
which is the Word of God” (Eph. 6:11-17). 


The papers recently reported that the famous ring 
veteran, Bob Fitzsimmons was dying, and said that 


AND THE EVANGELIST 183 


Jim Jeffries had sent in a telegram saying, “Tell 
Bob that Jim is in his corner pulling for him to 
win.” But the only. pull against death that will be 
successful and will give the fighter the victory is 
not Jim Jeffries, but Jesus Christ. Paul said, ‘““Who 
shall deliver me from the body of this death’? and 
then shouted the shout of victory, “I thank God 
through Jesus Christ my Lord!” He alone can de- 
liver ! 





DEUTERONOMY 


INTRODUCTION 

Concerning the Book of Deuteronomy, we have 
elected to incorporate our introductory note into the 
main discussion of the Book. 


185 





CHAPTER |i 


THE BOOK OF DEUTERONOMY 


TAT . 


he 


a 
a 


AY 


— 
sy 
“~ 
—= 
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THE BOOK OF DEUTERONOMY 


HE Book of Deuteronomy has been described as 

the “pivot of Pentateuchal criticism”. No one 
of the sixty-six volumes which make up the Sacred 
Canon has escaped even vicious attack at the hands 
of modernists, but Deuteronomy has endured a 
double portion; in that respect sharing with her 
sister volume, Isaiah. The rationalists have seemed 
determined to discredit its Mosaic authorship, and 
to date it, in time, as late as 620 B. C., and in author- 
ship to an unknown writer who procured his 
materials from statements assigned to Moses, cer- 
tain existing Jewish traditions and an active imagi- 
nation. 

The opening sentence, “These be the words which 
Moses spake to all Israel on this side Jordan in the 
wilderness’, is interpreted by them to mean that 
another is writing of him, hence the employment of 
the third person, a claim which absolutely ignores 
the circumstance that, immediately after this intro- 
duction, Moses employs the first person, and by the 
use of the personal pronoun “I” hundreds of times, 
makes himself, and not another, the author of the 
entire volume, its postlude excepted. To dispute 
the antiquity of Deuteronomy and the Mosaic au- 
thorship of the same, assigning, as some do, the 
Levitical law as a written code to a period follow- 
ing the Exile, and Deuteronomy to a much later 
date, tends, as conservatives claim, to “discredit the 
character of the Old Testament as a record of 
revelation and undermines Christianity itself”. 


Meinhold, himself a rationalist, admits that “if, on 
189 


190 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


the grounds of literary criticism, Deuteronomy is to 
be dated at 620 B. C., no credibility can be attached 
to its historical statements”. True believers will not 
even long debate the absurd suggestion that certain 
priests were parties to its production; that it was 
palmed off as a much more ancient document than 
its creation justified; that the writers put into the 
mouth of a man long since dead its wondrous mes- 
sages. All reason opposes such a suggestion. As 
Dr. Leander Keyser well says, “Why should the law 
of a central sanctuary be invented at a time when 
almost all the rival sanctuaries had gone down in 
the ruin of the Northern Kingdom? Why should 
the priests be so eager to foist upon the nation a 
code which certainly did not promote their inter- 
ests, and in one particular—the law of Deuteronomy 
18:6, f—-was distinctly detrimental to them? And 
how did it come to pass that people, priests and 
prophets recognized as Mosaic, legislation which 
(according to criticism) was so opposed on many 
important points to all that up to that time had been 
regarded as such?” 

To carry out such a colossal fraud is simply in- 
credible. To have an entire nation submit to such 
imposition is unthinkable. For a great people to 
submit their social and religious customs to fierce 
denunciations, their conduct to excoriation, their 
chief officials to flagrant criticism, and combine it all 
in a fraud that professed an antiquity wholly un- 
proven, requires a credulity of the critics exceeding 
that any Christian professor need exercise in accept- 
ing Deuteronomy as of the Pentateuch and from the 
hand of God’s matchless man—Moses. 

Furthermore, this critical position once more 


AND THE EVANGELIST 191 


charges Christ with either ignorance or accommoda- 
tion since He again and again quoted from the Book 
of Deuteronomy and assigned its authorship to 
Moses. 


If, therefore, we accept Christ versus the critics, 
we may approach the study of this Book with per- 
fect confidence as to its authorship and authority. 

Its study falls rather neatly under three heads: 
The Rehearsal of History, Recapitulation of the 
Law, and The Relation of Conduct to Consequence. 


THE REHEARSAL OF HISTORY 


Chapters 1—4. 


He reviews the forty years of wilderness wander- 
ing. At first sight, one is disposed to feel that this 
recapitulation is nothing more nor less than the 
tendency of an old man to reminiscence, but a care- 
ful study of chapters 1, 2 and 3 convinces to the 
contrary. It is, rather, the wisdom born of ex- 
perience. The story was not told for the telling, but 
to illustrate patent truths, prominent among which 
is the fact that God had gone with them through 
this long, needless and tedious journey, and His 
presence alone had been their national preservation. 

The individual who doesn’t learn from experience 
is dull indeed. John M. S. Allison, writing for the 
North American Review (April, 1922), suggests 
with great sincerity, “The past really lives in us 
and moves about us in thousands of ways, under 
thousands of different guises.” Certainly with such 
a people, so situated, it should live in them by the 
clear tracings of memory. Wilderness experiences 
are the sort that are never forgotten. The sunny 


192 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


days of life pass and our diaries omit them, but the 
days of battle and blood, the days when the eclipse 
of the sun is total, the days when the serpent bites 
and the manna is crawling with worms—these days 
cannot be forgotten. On that account they become 
our teachers, and you will find some such recorded 
in the very first chapter. 

Moses reminds them of how they retreated at the 
word of cowards, and with the exception of Caleb 
and Joshua, fixed upon themselves a judgment sure 
to be executed by time and travel, so that “not one 
of the generation should ever see the good land”, 
promised to their fathers. The Lord told Moses to 
give them the reason, “I am not among you.” 

It is a dark day when God hides His face. Even 
Christ, the Man of Nazareth, the One of infinite 
wisdom, infinite age and of infinite faith, felt its 
sting so deeply that momentary infidelity came, 
“My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me”? 

And yet, who doesn’t know that from the dark 
days the largest lessons are learned, and by them 
the most important truths are imprinted. Moses had 
a purpose in this review. 

He recounts the successes of their conflicts. It is 
interesting to run rapidly through these chapters 
and see Israel, a straggling crowd, including cattle 
and children, account for themselves in war. When 
Sihon, king of Heshbon, refuses them a passage 
through his country, and comes out to fight against 
them, the Lord God delivers him into their hands 
and they smite him and his people, take all his cities, 
and utterly destroy the remnant, appropriating his 
cattle. 

When Og, king of Bashan, came out against 


AND THE EVANGELIST 193 


them, he and all his people met a kindred fate, not 
a city escaping and Israel fattened on his forage. 

Even the giants, the Anakims, went down before 
them, God with them (chap. 3). 

When they forgot Him, however, they were in 
the sight of their enemies “as grasshoppers”. “With 
God all things are possible”. “Apart from Him we can 
do nothing”. Moses is teaching this truth by this re- 
hearsal of history. 

He seeks to impress the secret of their failures. 
One word would compass it, “Disobedience”. When 
they walked with the Lord and did according to His 
revelation, the days spelled triumph. When they 
refused His guidance and took their own course, 
they fell away and became an easy prey. 

Have principles changed in the least since those 
days, or is not human conduct a repetition, and the 
Divine practice immutable? 

A papist writer, Martin J. Scott, attempts in the 
“North American Review”, September, 1922, to an- 
swer the question, “What ails the world?” and he 
comes far more nearly telling us than any Prot- 
estant modernist. He says, “In proportion as God 
and His justice are acknowledged and respected by 
governments, will the world have peace. What 
government is to a people, that, and a great deal 
more, God is to the governments themselves. If 
people do not respect government, anarchy results. 
And because governments do not respect God and 
His justice, wars result. Governments will be selfish 
to the end of the world, and wars will continue to 
the end. One power alone is capable of restraining 
that selfishness. But it calls for good will on man’s 
part. That power is the World Ruler—God. If His 


194 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


rule, which is justice, is acknowledged by the na- 
tions, they will have peace, not otherwise. But ex- 
pediency, not justice, is the policy of governments. 
Hence God is ruled out of the councils of nations. 
Therefore, the world after Versailles was upside 
down and remains so. God was excluded from that 
gathering of governments. And peace was excluded 
too.” 

He is a wise man to whom experience can teach 
these truths. Plutarch, in his “Fabius Maximus”, 
tells how Municius, the Roman general, was envious 
of the success of Fabius, who held at that time the 
chief command in the Roman Army, operating 
against Hannibal. Municius finally obtained com- 
mand of a part of the army and going forth to bat- 
tle was overwhelmingly defeated by the Carthagin- 
ians. He straitly called his men together and said, 
“Friends and Fellow-soldiers: Not to err at all in 
the region of great affairs is above the wisdom of 
man; but it is the part of a prudent and good man 
to learn from his errors and miscarriages to correct 
himself for the future. I confess what I could not 
be brought to be sensible of in so long a time. I have 
learned in the small compass of one day, namely, 
that I know not how to command, but have need 
to be under the direction of another, and from this 
moment I bid adieu to the ambition of getting the 
better of a man whom it is an honor to serve. In all 
other respects the Dictator should be your com- 
mander, but in the due expressions of gratitude to 
Him, I will be your leader still by being the first to 
show an example of obedience and submission”. A 
noble speech indeed, and the revelation of a noble 
spirit. 


AND THE EVANGELIST 195 


How strange that men in dealing with God should 
not more shortly and certainly learn their need of 
His leadership, and willingly acquiesce in His every 
command! Truly, “Obedience is better than sacri- 
fice.” 


THE RECAPITULATION OF THE LAW 


Chapters 5:1 to 26:19 record for us a recapitula- 
tion of the Law. The study of this section sets out 
clearly certain fundamental truths. 

The Decalog is repeated with significant varia- 
tions. Chapter 5, fundamental to all the laws of 
God is the Decalog. In Exodus, Moses delivered the 
same as he brought it from the tip of the fingers 
Divine. In Deuteronomy, the Law is given again. 
From the first to the tenth commandment, the very 
language of Exodus is employed, save in the in- 
stance of the fourth. Here, the reason assigned to 
the Jew for keeping the Sabbath, is strangely and 
significantly changed, namely, from “because the 
Lord in six days made heaven and earth and rested on 
the seventh day”, to “Remember that thou wast a serv- 
ant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God 
brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by 
a stretched out arm; therefore, the Lord thy God com- 
manded thee to keep the Sabbath day” (Deut. 5:15). 

This change is so strange and so unexpected that 
it arrests immediate attention and demands ade- 
quate explanation. Why did God shift the reason 
for keeping the Sabbath from the finished creation 
to a completed redemption? The answer is not dif- 
ficult. In the Divine plan, redemption is a far 
greater event than creation; the soul of man exceeds 
the weight of the world; for that matter, of all 


196 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


worlds. The Law was given by Moses, but “Grace 
and Truth came by Jesus Christ”. The Law was 
given for Jews; the Gentiles were never in bondage 
to it, and above all, believing Gentiles are not bound 
by it. ‘To them, the Law is not a great external or 
outside force created for practices of restraint. Its 
spirit is transcribed to their souls rather; they walk 
at liberty while seeking Divine precepts. This is not 
to inveigh against the Law. “The Law is just, and 
true and good’, but by Law no man has ever been 
redeemed. It is to exalt Grace, which God hath re- 
vealed through Jesus Christ, in whom men have re- 
demption from sin. If I only love my father and 
mother because the Law commands it, I do not love 
them at all; if I refrain from making images and 
bowing down before them because this is the de- 
mand of the Law, my heart may yet be as full of 
idolatry as a heathen temple. Redemption is not by 
the Law; it is by Grace in Jesus Christ! 

The early Church was shortly called upon to set- 
tle this question of salvation by Law or Grace, and 
in the Jerusalem Conference Peter rose up and said 
unto them, 


“Men and brethren, ye know how that a good while ago 
God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth 
should hear the Word of the Gospel, and believe. 

“And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, 
giving them the Holy Ghost, even as He did unto us; 

“And put no difference between us and them, purifying 
their hearts by fatth. 

“Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon 
the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we 
were able to bear’? (Acts 15:7-10). 


Later he said, “We believe that through the Grace 
of the Lord Jesus Christ (not by Law) we shall be 
saved, even as they’ (Acts 15:7-11). Mark you, in 


AND THE EVANGELIST 197 


that very sentence, Peter, the Apostle, proves his 
realization of the fact that the Law had failed as a 
savior and the very Jew himself had hope alone in 
grace. How strange, then, for men of the ‘I‘wentieth 
Century to turn back to Law and proclaim the Law 
as though it were a redeemer, and protest that men 
who ignore the Jewish Saturday as the Sabbath will 
plunge themselves into the pit thereby, when the 
Law never saved! The keeping of the Sabbath was 
the one Law that contained in itself no ethical de- 
mand. ‘The Law to worship, the Law to honor fa- 
ther and mother, the Law against killing, stealing 
and covetousness—these are all questions of right 
and wrong; but to tithe time by the keeping of the 
Sabbath was a command solely in the interest of 
man’s physical life. When, therefore, by the pen of 
inspiration the reason for it was shifted from a fin- 
ished creation to a finished redemption, the act was 
lifted at once to a high spiritual level and became 
a symbol of the day when Christ, risen from the 
grave, should have completed redemption’s plan. 
That great fortune to mankind fell out on the first 
day of the week, creating not so much “a Christian 
Sabbath” as making forever a memorial day for re- 
demption itself, for the eighth day, or the first day 
of the week, clearly indicated the new order of 
things, or “the new creation” through Christ. 

We have no sympathy whatever with secularizing 
each one of the seven days; but we would have the 
first day of the week kept in the spirit of rejoicing 
as redemption’s memorial. On that day our Lord 
rose from the dead; on that day He met his dis- 
ciples again and again; on that day the brethren at 
Troas assembled with the Apostles and broke bread ; 


198 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


on that day the Christians laid aside their offerings ; 
on that day they met for prayer and breaking of 
bread—the fellowship of the saints; on that day 
John was caught up in the spirit and witnessed the 
marvels recorded in his apocalyptic vision. Oh, 
what a day! No legal bondage, for what have we to 
do with “holy days, sabbaths and new moons” ; but 
salvation’s memorial, a day of special service to the 
Son of God, our Saviour, a day for the soul’s re- 
joicing in Jesus. “Christ is the end of the Law for 
righteousness to every one that believeth”. 

But as we pass on in the study of this section of 
Scripture, we find Moses defends the Decalog in 
character and consequence. He reminds them of 
the glory out of which the voice spake (chap. 5:24). 
He reminds them of the obligation in the words 
themselves (5:32). He reminds them of the rela- 
tionship of the possession of the land to obedience 
of the precepts. He pleads with them as a father, 
“Hear, therefore, O Israel” (6:4). He anticipates the 
day of prophecy and begs that these words have 
place in their hearts (6:6), to be diligently taught 
to their children (6:7); bound for a sign upon their 
hands and frontlets between their eyes, lest they be 
forgotten (6:8) ; written upon the posts of the house 
and on the gates, where they could not be unob- 
served (6:9). Moses knew the relationship of law- 
keeping to national living. It is doubtful if modern- 
ists now have or will ever again entertain the same 
sacred reverence for Law that characterized the 
ancients, even the heathen of far-off days. 

We cannot forget how Socrates, when he was 
sentenced to death and, after an imprisonment of 
thirty days, was to drink the juice of the hemlock, 


AND THE EVANGELIST 199 


spent his time preparing for the end; friends con- 
ceived and executed plans for his escape and earn- 
estly endeavored to prevail upon him to avail him- 
self of the opportunity, but he answered, “That 
would be a crime to violate the law even when the 
sentence is unjust. I would rather die than do evil”. 
If a heathen philosopher could treat unjust laws 
with such reverence, Moses was justified in plead- 
ing with his people to regard the laws that “were 
true and just and good”, and such were the man- 
dates of Deuteronomy. 


It is easy enough for one to pick out some one of 
these precepts and, by detaching it from its context, 
create the impression that it was foolish or super- 
ficial or even utterly unjust ; but when one reads the 
whole Book, he sees the effectual relationship of 
laws, general and particular, to the life Israel was 
leading, and for that matter, catches the supreme 
spiritual significance of the same as they interpret 
themselves in the light of New Testament teaching. 
There is not a warning that was not needed, nor an 
exhortation which, if heeded, would have failed to 
profit the people. It all came to one conclusion for 
Israel. 


“What doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to 
fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all His ways, and to love 
Him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart 
and with all thy soul’ (10:12)? 

And as there was not a law in the Old Testament 
but was fitted for the profit of Israel, so there is not 
a command in the New Testament but looks to the 


conquest of the Christian soul. 


Among these enactments were personal and sig- 
nificant suggestions. They gave dietary and sani- 


200 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


tary suggestions (chap. 14); they established the 
Sabbatic year (chap. 15); they fixed the time of the 
Passover (chap. 16); they set forth the character of 
the offerings (chap. 17); they determined the duties 
of the Levites (chap. 18); they gave direction con- 
cerning the cities of refuge (chap. 19); they de- 
termined the way of righteous warfare (chap. 20); 
they established a court of inquest (chap. 21); they 
announced the law of brotherhood (chap. 22); they 
descended to the minute instances of social life and 
regulations of the same (chap. 23); they dealt with 
the great and difficult question of divorce (chap. 24); 
they ended (chap. 25) in an almost unlimited series 
of regulations concerning the social life of the peo- 
ple knowing a wilderness experience, including the 
law of the first fruits (chap. 26). 

It is interesting to study not alone the laws en- 
acted here, but the penalties declared, including the 
blessings and curses from Ebal to Gerizim. There 
is about them all an innate righteousness that has 
been unknown to those purely human codes for 
which God never assumed responsibility. From the 
curse against bribery to the curse against brutal 
murder to this day the sentences are justified in the 
judgment of the world’s most thoughtful men. 

In all they contrast the injustice and inordinately 
severe punishments often afflicted by godless gov- 
ernments. Plutarch, in writing about Solon, tells us 
that he repealed the laws of Draco except those con- 
cerning murder. Such was the severity of their pun- 
ishments in proportion to the offense that we are 
amazed as we read them. If one was convicted of 
idleness, death was the penalty. If one stole a few 
apples or potherbs, he must surely die, and by as 


AND THE EVANGELIST 201 


ignominious a method as did the murderer. And out 
of that grew the saying of Demades that ‘Draco 
wrote his laws, not with ink but with blood”. And 
when Draco was asked why such severe penalties, 
he answered, “Small ones deserve it, and I can find 
no greater for the most heinous.” Such were human 
laws in contrast to these laws Divine. 

But a further study of these laws involves a third 
lesson. 


THE RELATION OF CONDUCT TO 
CONSEQUENCES 


Chapters 27 :1—34:20. 


An earnest study of these reveals: Blessing is 
a fruit of obedience; and curses are a consequence of 
disobedience. It was said to Israel, 


“If thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the 
Lord thy God, to observe and to do all His commandments 
which I command thee this day, that the Lord thy God will 
set thee on high above all nations of the earth: 

“And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake 
thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy 
is00 iworl, 2,7) ), 

Blessings in the city, blessings in the field (28:3), 
blessings on the fruit of the ground (28:4), triumph 
over enemies (28:7), richness in store-house (28:8), 
a great and good name (28:10), multiplied children 
(28:11), treasures from Heaven (28:12), their even- 
tual supremacy (28:12), the head and not the tail, 
from above and not beneath (28:13)—all condi- 
tioned upon their keeping the law (28:14). 

Who would change it now? Who would dare to 
have blessings apart from obedience? Who would 
dare to divorce the one from the other and face the 
consequences? Men have always shown a disposition 


202 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


to obey their fellows and an almost equal disposition 
to forget God. The monk or the nun—how they 
yield to the Abbot or the Abbess; the Sister to the 
Mother Superior ; the Papal church—what obedience 
to the Pope! Paganism—what.abject slavery to high 
potentates! But for Israel—type of the Christian— 
it is theirs to “obey God”, and if conflict arises, then 
in the language of Peter, “to obey God rather than 
men” (Acts 5:29). 

One is compelled to recognize the fact that Mod- 
ernism has so far discredited the personality of God, 
the Deity of Christ, and the authority of the Scrip- 
tures, that men’s convictions no longer know a keen 
edge, and the Scripture commands no longer bind 
conscience, and the “thus saith the Lord” no longer 
settles subjects of controversy. 

The Modernist argues against “all external au- 
thority” and has not only increased the waters of 
infidelity, but he has pushed back the floodgates of 
lawlessness and deluged the world. 

If there were no other reason for studying the 
Book of Deuteronomy, the repeated ringing call to 
men for obedience to the Divine Law is both a de- 
fense and justification of the same. 

As one moves on in its study he encounters the 
Palestinian covenant (chap. 29:1,f). That it is a 
Covenant in addition to the one made with them in 
Horeb, is perfectly clear, in fact, so clear that all 
debate about that subject is strained and needless. 
The former Covenant rested in right, tempered with 
mercy, and enriched by grace. This covenant ex- 
plains itself in the light of experience; and while 
enunciating stringent conditions of blessing and 
strict rules of conduct, its promises are rich and lift 


AND THE EVANGELIST 203 


to a higher spiritual level than the Horeb covenant. 
Circumcision of the flesh is changed now to the cir- 
cumcision of the heart, and the bending of the knee 
to the surrender of the Spirit, and the blessings of 
the body to the life of the soul. The great lesson 
that runs throughout Deuteronomy, namely, that of 
the relation between obedience to God and Divine 
benediction, is a lesson upon which no mortal 
tongue will ever lay undue emphasis. The evils that 
erow out of disregard to God’s laws—no man can 
imagine them! The annals of human anguish is their 
record, 

We are told that when the first cable was laid in 
the Atlantic, where it went down miles and miles 
deep, it was found to be a failure and had to be 
taken up, at the loss of an enormous amount of time 
and unthinkable expense, and it was discovered that 
the workmen had ignored the oft-repeated command 
to keep it immersed in water while working on it, 
and on one occasion had left it where the hot sun 
struck it for a few minutes and melted the gutta- 
percha. Years followed before it could be laid again. 
Friends of the enterprise were greatly discouraged. 
Fifty voyages were made across the Atlantic, and 
finally capital enough was secured to lay it the 
second time. Possibly through the fault of another, 
who had forgotten to obey when the steamer had 
proceeded six hundred miles to sea, the cable parted 
and a loss of six million dollars ensued. In July 
1866, the third cable was ready and a vessel sent 
out on her way. This time the work was completely 
successful and the world applauded Field. It might 
have been so from the first. This loss of time, of 
talent, of means, might have been saved had men 


204 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


exactly obeyed, but even this is but a feeble type of 
what the world has felt in consequence of disobe- 
dience to God. Moses, then, must have brought his 
message from above, for only God Himself ever 
understood, or even now comprehends the relation 
of obedience to blessing, of covenant keeping to 
character and world consequences. 


But we conclude with a further lesson of the rela- 
tion of conduct to consequences. 

The death of Moses is a fitting climax to Moses’ 
life. The thirty-second chapter records his swan 
song, and what a song it is! Volumes might be de- 
voted to it without a waste word. Truth follows 
truth in an almost unlimited series of statements. 
When the great soul comes to his conclusion God 
permits his lips to pour forth blessing upon the 
Children of Israel before he dies. ‘The tribes are 
taken in turn, and for each, blessing is announced, 
Reuben, Levi, Jacob, Benjamin, and so on. Moses 
is now to the tribes what Jacob was to his sons—a 
rare father yearning over them and blessing them. 
“Happy art thou, O Israel: who is like unto thee, O 
people saved by the Lord, the shield of thy help, and 
who 1s the sword of thy excellency”’! (33:29). 

The concluding chapter of this Book, the thirty- 
fourth, records Moses’ death, and suggests the 
translation of his body. How can one speak as he 
ought to speak of this man when he comes to the 
last and hushed moment of life! Bettex writes: 
“Forty years a prince in the palaces of Egypt; forty © 
years a shepherd in the wild wastes of Midian; forty 
years in the power of God, he bears his people 
through the wilderness, as a mother carries her 


AND THE EVANGELIST 205 


babe, and then dies on Mount Nebo, “according to 
the Word of the Lord”, literally “at the mouth of the 
Lord” which the rabbins interpret, “by the kiss of 
the Lord” (34:5). What inexpressible words this 
man may have heard; what heavenly mysteries and 
Divine visions he may have seen, when, oblivious of 
the world, he was with Jehovah forty days and forty 
nights, and ate no bread and drank no water! His 
countenance is radiant with it; his thundering words 
flash it; the song of Moses, which John hears the 
redeemed sing in Heaven, echoes it. And the Chris- 
tian is permitted to ascend Sinai with him; to come 
into the presence of his God; to hear unspeakable 
things out of His Law, and to forget the world be- 
low, which is dancing around its golden calf. 


“And Moses was an hundred and twenty years old when 
he died: his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated. 
And the Children of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of 
Moab” (Deut. 34:7, 8). 


How simple and yet how sublime the record! It 
is enough! Moses’ tomb requires no epitaph. His 
name is sufficiently immortalized. Modernists will 
never take the coronet from Moses’ brow. 


“This was the bravest warrior 
That ever buckled sword; 

This the most gifted poet 
That ever breathed a word: 

And never earth’s philosopher 
Traced with his golden pen, 

On the deathless page, truths half so sage 
As he wrote down for men. 


“That was the grandest funeral 
That ever passed on earth, 
Rut no one heard the tramping, 

Or saw the train go forth,— 


206 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


None but the bald old eagle 
On gray Bethpeor’s height, 
Which from his rocky eyrie 
Looked on the wondrous sight. 


“And had he not high honor— 
The hillside for his pall— 
To lie in state, while angels wait 
With stars for tapers tall; 
And the dark rock-pines, like tossing plumes, 
Over his bier to wave, 
And God’s own hand, in that lonely land, 
To lay him in the grave? 


“O lonely tomb in Moab’s land! 

O dark Bethpeor’s hill! 

Speak to these curious hearts of ours 
And teach them to be still! 

God hath His mysteries of grace, 
Ways that we cannot tell, 

He hides them deep, like the secret sleep 
Of him He loved so well.” 


CHAPTER Il, 


THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES 


DEUTERONOMY 16:13-17. 


“Thou shalt observe the feast of tabernacles seven days, 
after that thou hast gathered in thy corn and thy wine: 

“And thou shalt rejoice in thy feast, thou, and thy son, 
and thy daughter, and thy manservant, and thy maidserv- 
ant, and the Levite, the stranger, and the fatherless, and 
the widow, that are within thy gates. 

“Seven days shalt thou keep a solemn feast unto the 
Lord thy God in the place which the Lord shall choose: 
because the Lord thy God shall bless thee in all thine in- 
crease, and in all the works of thine hands, therefore thou 
shalt surely rejoice. 

“Three times in a year shall all thy males appear before 
the Lord thy God in the place which He shall choose; in 
the feast of unleavened bread, and in the feast of weeks, 
and in the feast of tabernacles: and they shall not appear 
before the Lord empty: 

“Every man shall give as he is able, according to the 
blessing of the Lord thy God which He hath given thee” 
(Deut. 16:13-17). 


208 


THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES 


Deuteronomy 16:13-17. 

HERE is a theme near to my heart which links 

itself to the season of Autumn—‘‘The Great 
Harvest Home Day” of the Old Testament, the 
Feast of Tabernacles. ‘The very reading of the text 
has reminded us of its constitution, and also that it 
was intended to celebrate the harvest fully gar- 
nered. 

In studying it, we shall relate the discussion to 
five suggestions: It was a Recognition of Temporal 
Good; a Symbol of Temporary Residence; an 
Emphasis of National Unity; a Message of Millen- 
nial Glory; and, an Appeal for Present Usefulness. 


THE RECOGNITION OF TEMPORAL GOOD. 


“Thou shalt observe the feast of tabernacles seven days, 
after that thou hast garnered in thy corn and thy wine” 
(Deut. 16:13). 

It occurred at the close of the harvest. This 


ancient people were dwellers in a prosperous land. 
The first sight they ever had of it was the word 
picture of the spies sent from Kadesh—Barnea to in- 
vestigate and bring back a report. While they re- 
turned to render a majority and minority report on 
the subject of the occupation of the land, they were 
agreed on this, “Jt is a good land which the Lord our 
God doth give us * *. Surely it floweth with milk and 
honey * *. And”, presenting that gigantic cluster of 
grapes, they added, “this is the fruit of it” (Num. 13: 
27). 

But, after all, their greatest harvest called for no 
such gratitude as ought to characterize the oc- 


cupants of this, our beloved land—America. 
209 


210 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


The little territory of Goshen, or even that greater 
stretch of Solomon’s time when he reigned over “all 
the kingdom from the river Euphrates even unto the 
land of the Philistines, and to the border of Egypt”, 
was but a small spot which would be lost in some 
of the great states of this Union. Their richest val- 
leys were not more fruitful than the great sweeps 
of American soil, which as yet, have never felt the 
touch of ploughshare. Since Josiah Strong wrote 
his book, “Our Country”, it is needless for another 
to expatiate on the extent of it, save to remind his 
auditors that we are now much larger than when he 
caused to be published that splendid volume. We 
know that when the Imperial City on its seven hills 
ruled as the mistress of the world, and the realm of 
the Cesars’ stretched from the Caucasian mountains 
on the East three thousand miles to the Atlantic 
Ocean on.the West, and from the Orkney Islands 
on the North two thousand miles South to Thebes 
on the Nile, with one hundred and twenty millions 
of people subject to the imperial nod, their territory 
was only one-third of that which now makes up 
American possessions. 

But whether you are apprised of those statistics 
which a reliable speaker put forth some years since, 
declaring that the average consumption of grains to 
the person is more than forty bushels per annum, 
while in Europe it is only seventeen, and the aver- 
age consumption of meat in the United States is one 
hundred and twenty pounds to the person, while in 
Europe, it is but fifty-seven and a half, one must be 
ready to say for the prosperity of his country what 
the Psalmist long since wrote, “He hath not dealt so 
with any nation’. Before such temporal good the 


AND THE EVANGELIST 211 


spirit of thanksgiving ought to stir in every heart 
the sentiment of Kipling’s Recessional: 


“God of our fathers, known of old; 
Lord of our far-flung battle line; 
Beneath whose awful hand we hold 
Dominion over palm and pine. 
Lord. God of Hosts, be with us yet, 
Lest we forget—lest we forget!” 
This ancient feast celebrated the increase as from 
the Lord. 


“Seven days shalt thou keep a solemn feast unto the 
Lord thy God in the place which the Lord shall choose: 
because the Lord thy God shall bless thee in all thine tn- 
crease, and in all the works of thine hands, therefore thou 
shalt surely rejoice” (Deut. 16:15). 


That Old Testament truth, oft affirmed by proph- 
et and poet, is stated more strongly still by a New 
Testament Apostle, “Every good gift, and every per- 
fect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Fa- 
ther of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither 
shadow of turning” (James 1:17). It is a doctrine 
which needs emphasis in this self-assertive century. 
It is an assertion which reminds men afresh of the 
source of all good, and the very acceptance of which 
begets the spirit of gratitude. 

R. F. Horton tells the story of a farmer whose 
fields lay on the undulating slopes of the Cheviot, 
but whose spirit was careless, earth-bound, and 
sordid. One spring morning when the ploughs were 
in the furrow, and he walked alone in the hollow of 
the hills, and looked at the hedge rows now being 
clothed in green, and listened to the song of birds, 
and watched the soft white clouds which moved 
across the sky like a procession of dancing children, 
suddenly he stopped and said, “Everything I see 
and hear is praising God. Everything, everything, 


212 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


except me! I am not. I know not how.” The very 
thought was the seed of God’s truth which 

“Taught his heart to bear his part 

And join in the praise of spring.” 

But if the spring season calls for thanksgiving, 
how much more the autumn, when the fruits are 
garnered and the brown fields have sent their loads 
to the bin, and the pledge of the early summer has 
been made good in the fruitage of the early fall. 

And yet, after all, there is a better occasion of 
thanksgiving than that we are prospered in material 
wealth; and the sweetest song is not with him to 
whom the seasons have brought most of silver and 
gold, but rather with him to whom the year has 
brought most of God. Edgar S. Sellew has voiced 
my thought in his recent thanksgiving poem: 


“For what today am I most truly thankful? 
Is it for granaries that Thy harvests fill? 
Is it for lowing herd, or flock, so ample? 
Or any gift of Thine, through sovereign will? 


“Is it because my coffers are full laden 

With golden store, or gems of greatest worth? 
Is it because I stand so free from burden 

And care, amid the stricken ones of earth? 


“Ts it because the blessed free exemption 
Of all my dear ones given me of God 

From earthly sorrows, through the free redemption, 
So graciously poured o’er them by our Lord? 


“Oh, no! our joy springs from a fount still higher— 
From God Himself, the Spring of all joys, 
Because Jehovah is—That holy fire 
Throws deepest shade on earth and earthly joys. 


“Thou art the Source and Spring of all our gladness, 
Eternal pleasures by Thy hand are spread; 

Thou art the Balm for all our grief and sadness— 
We praise and worship Thee, our Living Head.” 


AND THE EVANGELIST 213 


But to our feast again. We have said it was 


A SYMBOL OF TEMPORAL RESIDENCE. 


A short season, spent in booths. 


“Seven days shalt thou keep a solemn feast unto the 
Lord thy God” (Deut. 16:15). 

“And ye shall take you on the first day the boughs of 
goodly trees, branches of palm trees, and the boughs of 
thick trees, and willows of the brook; and ye shall rejoice 
before the Lord your God seven days. 

“And ye shall keep it a feast unto the Lord seven days 
in the year. It shall be a statute for ever in your genera- 
tions. * * 

“Ye shall dwell in booths seven days; all that are Israel- 
ites born, shall dwell in booths’ (Lev. 23:40-42). 

There is not a New Testament truth but the 
shadow of it is found in the Old Testament Scrip- 
ture. It did not remain for the Apostle Paul to see 
the great fact that “here have we no continuing 
city”, and to speak of us as “pilgrims and strangers 
in the earth”, but only to reaffirm that which God 
had written into the constitution of the Feast of the 
Tabernacles. But this assertion which might strike 
sorrow into the heart of the man who knows not 
God, nor trusts in the redemption of His Son, be- 
comes to the Christian an inspiration and a song. It 
is the very thought which sustains him in sorrow’s 
hour, which soothes him when suffering is on, which 
paints for him the prospect of victory in the moment 
of darkest defeat. “For they who have confessed that 
they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth thereby 
declare plainly that they desire a better country, that is, 
a heavenly country. Wherefore, God is not ashamed 
to be called thew God, for He hath prepared for them 


214 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


a city’. The man who has entertained this view of 
life is one who can sing with Tennyson, 


“Sunset and evening star, 

And one clear call for me! 

And may there be no moaning of the bar, 
When I put out to sea. 


“But such a tide as, moving, seems asleep, 

Too full for sound or foam, 

When that which drew from out the boundless deep 
Turns again home! 


“Twilight and evening bell, 

And after that the dark! 

And may there be no sadness of farewell, 
When I embark! 


“For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place, 
The flood may bear me far, 

I hope to see my Pilot face to face, 

When I have crost the bar.” 


This short season was parenthesized by Sabbaths. 
In the original constitution of this feast, it is writ- 
ten, “In the first day ye shall have an holy convocation; 
ye shall do no servile work therein” (Lev. 23:7). Sure- 
ly the Sabbath was “made for man and not man for 
the Sabbath”. God who created us knew the neces- 
sity—physical, mental, and moral—of devoting this 
seventh section of time to rest of the body, and the 
recreation of the soul and spirit. One of the ill- 
omens of this hour is the somewhat dominant dis- 
position to despise this Divine ordination of time. 
The atheist who proposes to rule God out of the 
world by refusing to recognize the Sabbath; the 
money-maddened who, in his greed of gain, objects 
to shutting up shop or shutting down the mill; the 
pleasure-seeking who convert the sacred hours into 
sprees—these with all other confederates are co- 
operating with Satan in his assault against one of 


AND THE EVANGELIST 215 


the greatest essentials of moral manhood and Chris- 
tian civilization. I listened with interest one Sun- 
day afternoon to what a notable priest said on the 
subject of mill-running on the Sabbath. And I had 
a right to be interested, for in my study on Saturday 
night, I had discussed with one of my young men 
the very question of whether, at this season of the 
year, with nothing before him, he should forfeit a 
good position, or continue to work seven days in 
the week. Not because the question was in my 
mind at all debatable, did I listen with interest— 
God settled that before either of us were born—but 
because I knew the strength of his temptation, the 
need of my sympathy, the expression of counsel, 
which, upon mature reflection, would appear to him 
in as perfect accord with reason as it was with 
Revelation. I cannot believe those guiltless who, in 
love of money, tempt youth or even maturity to 
transgress at once the law of God, and the essential 
laws of their own being. 

At Ironton, Ohio, a godly man, an elder in the 
Presbyterian church, owned and operated a blast 
furnace, and in the face of the philosophy of iron 
manufacturers that a furnace would chill not at 
work every day in the week, Elder Means ordered 
his fires banked on Saturday night because he had 
read in the Book, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep 
it holy’. On opening them Monday, he found the 
moulten metal running more freely than ever, and 
discovered that he could actually make more iron in 
six days than in seven, and at less cost. But if that 
had not been true, the Divine command and the hu- 
man demand would have remained the same. “Ye 
shall do no servile work therein”. For the reason long 


216 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


since assigned by Talleyrand, some repose, some 
cessation from nervous excitement, some intermis- 
sions from labor for the purposes of meditation, to 
save one from crumbling under the shocks and pres- 
sures of public life, are our necessity ; and for the ad- 
ditional reason, well known to Christian men, fur- 
nishing even occasion to God to call for this time, 
that the soul required it. To deny it is to throttle 
the higher nature. That which is noblest in us is 
atrophied, and our moral and spiritual evolution is 
arrested, and the true man is buried up in the beast. 
There is a gospel in the Ten Commandments, and 
one of its great doctrines is voiced in these words, 


“Six days shalt thou labour and do all thy work: 

“But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy 
God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, 
nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy matdservant, nor 
thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates’ (Exod. 
20:9, I0). 

The time has come when, for the sake of the 
generation of which we are a part, and the posterity 
on which we expend our prayers, we must fight 
back this foe to the Christian Sabbath, knowing that 
if it conquers, the future of the Christian civilization 
is doomed. 

Here again the prayer of Kipling’s “Recessional”’ 
is appropriate: 

“Tf, drunk with sight of power, we loose 
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe— 
Such boasting as the Gentiles use, 

Or lesser breeds without the Law— 


Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, 
Lest we forget—lest we forget!” 


But for the third suggestion from our feast: 


AN EMPHASIS OF NATIONAL UNITY 
Reverting again to the constitution of this first 


AND THE EVANGELIST 217 


feast in Leviticus, we find this said, “Ye shall dwell 
in booths seven days. All that are Israelites born, 
shall dwell in booths” (Lev. 23:42). 

The presence of every Israelite was expected. It 
mattered not how far their residence from the feast, 
on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, the last 
man was to assemble. It was the one way, and the 
best way to keep alive the national spirit, and to 
confederate the forces of Israel. It was also “the 
shadow of things to come” when the Gospel feast 
should call together in the church the children of 
Abraham by faith. When Paul penned his Epistle 
to the Hebrews, among other wise and wholesome 
suggestions, he made this, “Let us consider one 
another to provoke unto love and to good works, not 
forgetting the assembling of ourselves together as the 
manner of some is’. What these great feasts were to 
the spirit of national unity with the Jews, confeder- 
ating their forces, sealing their affections, solidifying 
their purposes, making possible at once warfare— 
defensive and aggressive—the calling together of 
the congregation, and the co-operation of churches 
and greater assemblies, they are to the work of God 
now in hand. 

This country has a peculiar folk who style them- 
selves “Brethren”, who object to all Christian or- 
ganization, and who, in spite of their otherwise ex- 
cellent knowledge of the Word, insist upon walking 
every man apart. They are a perfect illustration of 
the necessity of the feast of tabernacles, or a regular- 
ly ordained time and place for the assembly for the 
service of God’s saints. In Texas and Arkansas, the 
Baptist denomination was once torn asunder by 
those who represented the anti-organization spirit. 


218 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


What is the result of such a philosophy of religion? 
I speak only a patent truth when I say that in soul- 
winning service, in the upbuilding of those organiza- 
tions which made for the betterment of the world, 
in sending missionaries to benighted lands, in filling 
up the office unto which Christ came, and into 
which He has called His own, namely, the office of 
seeking and “saving that which was lost’, they are 
the least valuable of all those who wear the Name 
of the Lord. The reason is not far to seek! With 
practically no assembly of their forces, and no tem- 
ples of worship, scarce a tent or a booth, standing 
almost every man apart, they are a rope of sand. 

I make these remarks to add another for the 
benefit of those church-members who have a name 
upon the church roll, but whose faces are seldom 
seen in the house of God, and whose hands are not 
outstretched to help in the hour of need. Brethren, 
sisters, let this Old Testament feast of tabernacles 
tell you that when God’s Name is to be honored by 
the gathering together of His people, according to 
His direction, He expects you there, and your ab- 
sense is worse than your condemnation; it is your 
spiritual decline and undoing. 

At that feast the person of no Israelite was de- 
spised. It mattered not who they were or from what 
station, they were alike welcome. ‘The word is, 
“Thou shalt rejoice in thy feast, thou, and thy son, 
and thy daughter, and thy manservant, and thy maid- 
servant, and the Levite, the stranger and the fatherless, 
and the widow that are within thy gates’. Their re- 
lationship to this feast was not determined by 
whether they were rich or poor, high or low; the 
only question was whether they were Israelites. 


AND THE EVANGELIST 219 


Ah, what a suggestion here! Henry Ward Beecher 
sagely said, “That institution is not worthy the 
name of church which fails or refuses to cut the 
social loaf from top to bottom.” 

Sometime ago, E. J. Hardy, writing about Bos- 
ton’s social elite, recited an instance of a man who 
had leaped from comparative poverty to sudden 
wealth, and with the change in his fortune moved 
from the humble home into a palace, and celebrated 
the occasion by a brilliant reception. A friend of 
many years noticing the absence of his host’s 
brother, who had been less unfortunate in financial] 
speculations, and was poor, inquired whether he was 
sick, and received the answer, “No, no; but in send- 
ing out invitations for such an occasion, the line 
must be drawn somewhere.” God save the mark, 
when that line falls where it disfellowships a 
brother! And yet, far better that it be so with 
worldlings than with those who claim to be the chil- 
dren of God! The only question the church has 
any right to ask in the constitution of jts member- 
ship, or in the conduct of its fellowship, is this, 
Ptcavoura child of God?” So far back as the book 
from which we bring our text, we hear God saying, 
“Ye shall not respect persons”. Peter learned by a 
vision from Heaven that “God is no respecter of 
persons, but in every nation he that feareth Him and 
worketh righteousness is accepted with Him”, while 
James excoriates the conduct of that church which 
has the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ with respect 
of persons, and gives the chief seat to the man with 
the gold ring, and goodly apparel, and pushes under 
the foot-stool His poor. 

Unquestionably, the rifest and ripest problems re- 


220 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


late themselves to this very subject. If capital and 
labor ever find common ground, and the problem of 
the blackman in America is to see a happy solution, 
and poverty and riches come to terms of peace, the 
church of God, in all her assemblies and services, 
must stand for the principle of equality in Christ 
Jesus; and must understand that any institution, as 
Louis Banks said, “which is sufficiently aristocratic 
in spirit to quarantine against one little waif, what- 
ever its ignorance, or rags, or color, establishes a 
quarantine against the presence and glory of the 
Kingdom of Jesus Christ! Let them establish a 
quarantine against torn wool, and cotton and silk to 
keep out cholera, if they will; but let there be no 
quarantine at the church door against any torn and 
trampled remnant of humanity that bears the im- 
press of God.” 


THE MESSAGE OF MILLENNIAL GLORY 


When one reads the record of this Old Testament 
feast, he may have wondered why, whenever it is 
referred to, that this is introduced: 


“Three times ina year shall all thy males appear before 
the Lord thy God in the place which he shall choose; in 
the feast of unleavened bread, and in the feast of weeks, 
and in the feast of tabernacles: and they shall not appear 
before the Lord empty” (Deut. 16:16). 

But the Scripture study will render the reason 
evident. Paul, in his Epistle to the Corinthians, 
speaking of the Israelites’ experience, said, 


“Now all these things happened unto them for ensam- 
ples; and they are written for our admonition, upon whom 
the ends of the world are come” (I Cor. 10:11). 


And to the Colossians, he adds, concerning the 
feasts of the Old Testament, “They are a shadow of 


AND THE EVANGELIST 221 


the things to come’ (2:17). In that marvelous ex- 
position of Old Testament symbols, the Epistle to 
the Hebrews, he says, 

“For the Law having a shadow of good things to come, 
and not the very image of the things, can never with those 
sacrifices, which they offered year by year continually make 
the comers thereunto perfect” (10:1). 

What is the suggestion then of these shadows? 

The feast of unleavened bread is better known to 
you as the “passover’”, and represents always and 
everywhere, redemption. It was the redemption of 
Israel when the first-born of Egypt was slain; it 
was redemption for us when the Only Born of God 
was given to the cross. Paul distinctly says in I 
Cor. 5:7 that the paschal lamb typified the death of 
Christ; while the feast of weeks is the famous 
Pentecost, prefiguring that blessed experience of 
the descent of the Spirit, on that great day when 
the Church of Christ was born in old Jerusalem. 

But the feast of tabernacles has not yet had its 
antitype, for it typifies “the times of the restitution of 
all things which God hath spoken by the mouth of all 
His holy Prophets since the world began’. For the 
Jews, it speaks of the remnant yet to return; and of 
the re-establishment of those types which shall be 
interpreted in the very presence of the reigning 
Christ, for has Zechariah not reminded us concern- 
ing the glory of the latter day, 


“Tt shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all 
the nations which came against Jerusalem shall even go up 
from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, 
and to keep the feast of tabernacles’ (Zech, 14:16). 

I never anticipate that blessed hour which Paul 
has described in the fifteenth of I Corinthians and 
the fourth of I Thessalonians, and John has so mar- 


222 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


velously depicted in the apocalypse, but I put new 
meaning into that petition of my Lord’s Prayer, 
“Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as tt 
is in Heaven’. For it is a time when “He shall reign 
from sea to sea”; it is a time when the roar of bat- 
tle shall cease, and the sword and the spear shall 
have been “transformed into implements of peace 
and agriculture”, and God’s people shall repose be- 
neath His shade; and as Macintosh puts it, “All the 
earth shall rejoice in the government of the Prince 
of Peace.” To anticipate is to sing with William 
Cullen Bryant: 
“O North, with all thy vales of green! 
O South with all thy palms! 
From peopled towns and fields between 
Uplift the voice of psalms. 


Raise, ancient East! the anthem high, 
And let the youthful West reply. 


“Lo! in the clouds of heaven appears 
God’s well-beloved Son. 

He brings a train of brighter years, 
His Kingdom is begun. 

He comes a guilty world to bless 

With mercy, truth, and righteousness. 


“OQ Father, haste the promised hour, 
When at His feet shall lie 

All rule, authority, and power, 
Beneath the ample sky; 

When He shall reign from pole to pole, 

The Lord of every human soul. 


“When all shall heed the words He said, 
Amid their daily cares, 
And by the loving life He led 
Shall strive to pattern theirs; 
And He who conquered Death shall win 
The mightier conquest over sin.” 


But between this hour and that, whether it be 
near or far, God makes provision for our employ- 


AND THE EVANGELIST 223 


ment. It is a strange thing how these Old Testa- 
ment symbols speak whole, not partial truths, and 
combine a sound philosophy with an essential prac- 
tice. 

Before we close this study, we must see another 
lesson from this feast of the tabernacles. 


THE APPEAL TO PRESENT USEFULNESS 
“And they shall not appear before the Lord empty. 
Every man shall give as he is able, according to the bless- 
ing of the Lord thy God which He hath given thee” (Deut. 

TOS IONI7). 

And God who gave to them all the increase of 
their land, the fruit of the wine-press, shall require 
it of them, that they rejoice the heart of the Levite, 
the stranger and the widow and the fatherless. The 
place where He meets His people is not only “a 
sphere of joy and praise”, but also a “center from 
which streams of blessing were to flow in all direc- 
tions”’. 

How evident the lesson in all this for us. 

Here is presented the Christian’s solemn re- 
sponsibility. Whatever other grace you may have 
cultivated you never become Christlike until you 
have had this “grace of giving”. You remember the 
Apostle’s appeal to the people of his love, “Therefore, 
as ye abound in every thing, in faith, and utterance, 
and knowledge, and in all diligence, and in your love 
to us, see that ye abound in this grace also” (II Cor. 
8:7). The miserly man may be a member of the 
church, but never a Christian. It is not worth while 
to ask whether an interrogation point must be writ- 
ten after the profession of such an one. God has 
already determined the sign that shall characterize 
that man’s religion; He has preceded his profession 


224 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


by the minus sign. Covetousness is placed in the 
catalogue of sins which debar one forever from the 
Celestial City. The giving Spirit of the Christ was 
such that He spared not even Himself; how then 
dare we claim to be His children and spare noth- 
ing for the “Levite, the stranger, the widow and the 
fatherless”, and even steal away from Him His 
tithe! “Will a man rob God”? and yet profess to be 
His faithful servant? Out with such hypocrisy! 
Only those will ever participate in that feast of 
which this is but a shadow and type, who, when 
they had opportunity, went not up to God empty, 
but gave as God had given unto them. 

Here is named a special privilege. The educated 
man counts it his deepest privilege to pass to anoth- 
er what he has stored up by earnest study; and the 
true Christian man regards his substance from the 
same standpoint. Giving is to his warm, beating 
heart what flowing is to the water-vein, a relief from 
pressure, coming down from the very heights, and 
joy in proportion to the people strengthened and re- 
freshed. Not a few times I have looked into the 
face of Louise Shepherd, that young woman, who, 
at Old Orchard camp meeting some years since, 
stripped her jewels from fingers and clothing, gave 
the diamonds, and exchanged gold for iron; and 
there is a heavenly beauty about it which is not ex- 
plained by arrangement or proportion of features, or 
combinations of color and figure; a beauty born of 
the blessed privilege of “working together with 
God”. 

Dr. McArthur of New York City had in his 
church a scrub-woman who never gave less than 
$150 a year to foreign missions, and never earned 


AND THE EVANGELIST 225 


more than $1.00 for her hard day’s service. And 
yet that woman walked the earth with the heart 
of a queen beating in her bosom, for she knew that 
in this blessed work she was wedded to the King 
of kings. 

Oh, what a privilege! Who can tell the meaning 
of the language of Jesus when He said, “Give and it 
shall be given unto you”. The most righteous lives 
under God’s stars are those, wherever lived, by 
whomsoever, that only get from God to give; lives 
pressed down, heaped up, running over! A young 
woman in an after-meeting stated, “It is said that 
our lives are so shallow that we cannot hold much, 
but they can overflow a great deal. Thank God for 
the fact and may I be a vessel constantly filled to 
overflowing!” 

He here appointed a channel of power. After all, 
the greatness of man and his real occasion for grati- 
tude, is not measured by what he has received; but, 
rather, by what he gives. That is why God spared 
not His own Son. That is why Christ could save 
others, but Himself He could not save. And one, 
who would be a light in the world, must under- 
stand that light is born of self-consumption; and as 
it is impossible for a wick in the candle, the gas in 
the tube, or the wire in the bulb, to keep itself, and 
yet dissipate the darkness, no more can we! Henry 
T. Chapman, of Leed, Eng., quotes the author of a 
book on India, saying, “One day I stood near one of 
the great temples of India. While my friend and 
I stood there, a native woman came carrying a lit- 
tle child in her arms. She took no notice of us, but 
when she got to the foot of the temple steps, she 
threw herself prone on the ground, holding up the 


226 THE BIBLE OF THE EXPOSITOR 


babe in her arms. We looked and saw the babe was 
ill-shapen, and had none of the beauty which char- 
acterizes infanthood. Then she prayed this prayer, 
“O grant that my child may grow as fair as other 
children. Grant that it may grow comely; grant 
that it may grow strong. Oh, hear the cry of a 
mother’s breaking heart!” Her prayer was finished, 
and she arose and was passing away. The speaker 
said, “Friend, to whom have you prayed?” She an- 
swered, “I do not know; but surely there must be 
somewhere one who would hear the cry of a moth- 
er’s heart, and keep a mother’s heart from break- 
ing !” 

Beloved, it is within our power, as a favored peo- 
ple of God, by giving silver and gold, by giving sons 
and daughters, by giving self, to send “the Gospel 
of the Kingdom” for a witness to those who live in 
such ignorance, that they may know that there is 
a God, and that He is a rewarder of them that dili- 
gently seek Him. And if ever the time comes when 
the dark spots of the earth shall have been illumi- 
nated, the ill-shapened straightened, the sick healed, 
and the captive souls set at liberty, it will be when 
those of us who assemble in His Name express our 
gratitude to the God of all good, and prove the 
genuineness of our profession by a practice of this 
Old Testament precept, “and give every man as he is 
able, according to the blessing which Jehovah our God 
has given him” (Deut. 16:17). 





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